I want to bring a message today
that is a follow-up on Hebrews chapter 3 and chapter 4, which
we have been studying, about the rest of God. And you can see from the bulletin,
if you happen to look at it, that the title of today's message
is, Wherefore Didst Thou Doubt? Which Jesus asked Peter. And
we're going to look at that scripture in Matthew chapter 14. but we
will look at this together. Ask the Lord to be with us in
your heart that He would show to us His grace, His saving grace,
His keeping grace, His perfecting grace, all of it to the praise
of the glory of His grace. We heard about Don Fortner's
desires Where did those desires come from? They had to come from
the grace of God, didn't they? And what does that say about
God's desires towards His people? He desires them, and He wants
them, and He will have them. The psalmist said in Psalm 73,
whom have I in heaven but thee, O Lord, and there is none on
earth I desire beside thee. And so this is the expression
of the heart as a reciprocal response to the grace of God
towards us that he would have us. His love towards us is the
reason that we love him. Isn't it true? Let's pray. Father,
we pray that according to your grace in the Lord Jesus Christ,
and to the praise of the glory of your grace, you would reveal
yourself to us in our salvation from your word, the gospel, in
the work, in the person, in the work of our Savior, the Lord
Jesus, your only begotten Son, and help us to desire him alone.
Help us to come to you by him alone, rejoice in him, hope in
him, and look for him, and love him, and so that we would commit
our eternity into His hands. We have nothing else but Him. We have nowhere else to go, and
we long to be with Him. And so we pray, Lord, that You
would warm our hearts. We wouldn't be cold, not lukewarm,
but we would be warm toward the Lord Jesus Christ because of
Your grace. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. If you remember from Hebrews
chapter 3 and chapter 4, the Israelites that were in the
wilderness and all of their deliverance from Egypt and their entrance
into Canaan serve by God's design to teach us about our rest in
Christ. And it says in Hebrews chapter
four, verse two, that unto us was the gospel preached, as well
as unto them. The gospel is the promise of
God. It's the account of Christ's
work to save his people from their sins, to bring them to
God, and to give them an eternal inheritance. And this is called
rest, the promise of God of eternal life because of the righteousness
of Christ, to be with Christ, to know him. and to receive with
Christ all the blessings that he earned by his life and sufferings
and death in obedience to the will of God. All of this refers
to what the gospel reveals, and all of it refers to the rest
that God gives us in Christ. And we saw in those chapters
that God uses three things in scripture to as a picture of
that rest, to depict that rest, first is creation. And I'm not
gonna go back through those in detail, but I remind you of them
because it all comes down to the Lord Jesus Christ. In creation,
in redemption, in the bringing of Israel into the land of Canaan,
their redemption from Egypt, in the creation of this world,
God depicts our rest in Christ. And so we learn from Hebrews
chapter three and four that we rest in Christ, who is our rest. He is our Sabbath rest. He is
our creator. It was not only he who created
the worlds, but in his death he created the church. And we're
created in him. We are God's workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works. And this is all by grace. We're
saved, it's by grace you've been saved, through faith and that
not of yourself. It is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. So this is the, if we look at
the history of the world in time, the purpose of God in it, that
purpose is that Christ would create a church, a temple, a
people, a city. a dwelling place of God, and
they would know Him, and He would know them, and they would be
His people, and He would take away their sins, and He would
bring them to glory. In John 14, He said, I go to
prepare a place for you, and if I go to prepare a place for
you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am,
there you may be also. So in creation, he's the creator,
he created the church by his death. He's called in Isaiah
54 verse 5, thy maker is thy husband. And this teaches us
how God created, just like God created Eve and brought her to
the man Adam, God created his people in Christ and he finished
the work. Therefore we rest in that. And
then in redemption, redemption from Egypt, the redemption of
Israel from Egypt by the Passover lamb, delivering them from Pharaoh,
from his armies, and from bondage in Egypt, depicts our redemption
by the blood of Christ from sin, our own bondage and sin, from
Satan, who holds us as a tyrant, and death, the threatening and
the condemnation that we deserve, the wrath of God, And all that
sin brings with it, Christ has redeemed us, and so we rest.
Like the Israelites, they looked at that redemption and they marveled
that God would do this work to save them from their enemies.
And this is spoken of in Luke chapter 1, verse 68 through 75,
how Zacharias, when he prayed in
thankfulness to God, he looked forward to the fact that when
his son John the Baptist was born, who would be the forerunner
of Jesus, he would tell the gospel of how Christ would deliver us
from our enemies, that we might serve him in fear all the days
of our life. And this was the same redemption
that he spoke of. And then, of course, when Joshua
led Israel into Canaan, he gave them the promised inheritance.
which was promised to them in picture and in type as a figure
of the inheritance we have in Christ. And how does that inheritance
come to us? Well, it was given to us in Christ
before the world began as a promise, in a covenant. And that covenant,
according to Hebrews chapter 9 verse 15, was made sure to
us when the Lord Jesus Christ, who was the testator, the covenant
maker, the one whose will it was to give us that inheritance.
When he died, that inheritance became ours. And he gave it to
us in his own conquest over our enemies, which conquest he made
in his death on the cross. So he spoiled principalities
and powers. He made a show of them openly
in his triumph over them when he nailed the handwriting of
ordinances that was against us to his cross. and all these three
things, his creation of his church, his redemption of them from sin
and Satan and death and all enemies in this world, and the inheritance
he gives us by his conquest over our enemies in fulfillment of
God's everlasting covenant to us in Christ, all these things
are speaking of our rest in Christ. Christ is our rest. Everything God has for sinners
is found in Christ alone. And I say all that in order to
lead up to the question that Jesus asked Peter in Matthew
14 when he said, wherefore didst thou doubt? We saw in Hebrews
chapter three and four that the Israelites, to the greatest tragedy
of their own loss, failed to believe God. They did not believe
God. The gospel was preached. It was
not mixed with faith in them. And the gospel was preached to
them, the gospel of salvation by Christ, to sinners, by God
who cannot lie and cannot fail was preached to them. And they
would not believe it. That's a tragedy because they
perished. in their unbelief without ever
entering into the rest, not only of Canaan, but of the eternal
rest that's in Christ. And what a tragedy it is to a
sinner for him to lose his eternal soul because he fails to believe
God. Has God ever failed to tell the truth? Has he ever failed
to keep his promise? Has he ever failed to do what
he said in his word? Has he ever failed to be holy
and right and just and to be gracious to sinners? He's never
failed. Why would we doubt him? Why would
we as sinners hold him suspect and think somehow that what he
said will not be fulfilled and so go on trusting in what we
need to do in order to be saved rather than focusing on what
he said he would do and has done in the Lord Jesus Christ. He
himself made himself responsible to fulfill all the requirements
meet all the conditions of all the promises he made to his people
in Christ. And this is intended, it's designed,
so that it would make those promises sure to us by grace, and that
God himself would give us this faith to see that, and we would
so look to him in thankfulness as recipients only, and not contributors,
recipients only in this saving grace that's given to us. And
so God is faithful to do what he said, faithful to himself,
faithful to his word, his promises, faithful to his son, and faithful
to his people. He will, without fail, bring
them to himself. In the Lord Jesus, he will present
them to himself, without fail, as holy without blame before
himself in love. And Jesus did this in his own
work. It says in Ephesians 5, husbands
love your wives even as Christ also loved the church. He loved
the church and he gave himself for it that he might sanctify
and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that's
the gospel, that he might present it to himself a glorious church,
not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should
be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives
as their own bodies, as Christ did. He that loveth his wife
loves himself. No man ever yet hated his own
flesh, but he nourishes and cherishes his own flesh, even as the Lord
nourishes and cherishes the church. Now the Lord himself loves his
people as he loves himself. He loved them and gave himself.
And to fail to believe this is therefore the greatest tragedy.
When we trust Christ, we rest in our souls, and we no longer
fear the wrath of God. Not because we've done something,
not because we've experienced something, but because God has
revealed to us what Christ did. And in so looking upon Him, we
experience that peace. We enjoy it, don't we? The wrath
of God is no longer a terror to us. Christ has taken it from
us. We no longer work to earn favor
from God or blessings from God. We trust in Him who justifies
the ungodly. We have peace with God because
of the blood of Christ, because we know that God is at peace
with us by his blood, and we have boldness by his blood to
enter into the holiest. And so, even we find it in our
own experience that the Spirit of God, according to scripture,
the Spirit of God has sprinkled our conscience with the blood
of Christ and given us this faith, this obedience of faith, a grace
from God, so that we might lay hold on eternal life, looking
to Christ only. God has sprinkled our conscience
with the blood that He accepted for the atonement of our sins
and for our righteousness before Him. And so we believe God in
all of our salvation. We have assurance, not because
of what we find in ourselves, but because of what God has said
of His Son. And this is the basis of all
of our confidence and hope and assurance before God. So I want
to consider these things in two places of scripture. The first
one is in Romans chapter 5, and the second one is in Matthew
chapter 14. So let's look at Romans chapter
5, because there we hear the doctrine of these things laid
out in the book of Romans. And then in Matthew 14, we're
given a living illustration, a living illustration in the
life of the Lord Jesus Christ while he was on earth with his
disciples. First in Romans chapter 5, I
want to read these verses, first 11 verses of Romans 5 with you. Therefore being justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
How do we have peace with God? By our Lord Jesus Christ. And
what is this that the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us by which
we have this peace? He's justified us. He has made
us accepted in the beloved by his own righteousness. Justification
is God's declaration of us, of a righteousness that we have. but we know we aren't righteous
in ourselves and that righteousness is only in and fully in the Lord
Jesus. Knowing this, knowing that God
has received Christ in his obedience unto death for us, by his sin-atoning
blood, by his justifying righteousness, knowing this, knowing that God
has accepted Christ and provided all in Christ and accepted him
for us and considered only him we have peace with God. We experience
it, we enjoy it. And then he says in verse two,
the second blessing that we experience in our justification is this,
by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein
we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. So we not
only have peace with God in our conscience because Christ made
peace for us in God by his own shed blood, But we also have
access by the same faith in Christ's shed blood. We come with boldness
into the presence of God, into the very holiest of all, by the
blood of Jesus. Because of that, because of our
justifying righteousness, our sin-atoning Savior, by His blood,
He gives us access to God so that we receive grace from God
in looking to Christ. Grace is given us to believe,
and in believing, we also receive grace from God to trust Christ
more and more. But this is not without... Our trust in Christ, our receiving
this grace, our experience in this believing and access to
God is not without trouble in this life. He says, and we rejoice
in hope of the glory of God. Hope is a confident expectation
of God's blessings given to us. And our hope is confident and
expectant and we have assurance of faith in it because our blessings
depend on Christ alone. And so he says in verse three,
not only do we have peace with God in our conscience through
faith by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, not only do we
have access to God by his blood and come boldly into his presence,
not only do we rejoice in confident expectation to receive all blessings
from God because of Christ, but we even boast, we glory in tribulations. We're like those who are, we
already possess what God has said. God calls those things
which be not as though they were. And so we walk in life expecting
God to fulfill them to us because of Christ. We aren't, we don't
hesitate. Because of Christ? Do we find
a lack in Him? Do we find something unacceptable?
Do we find God's promises in Him to be questionable or uncertain? Of course not. By God's grace,
we believe with confidence that God has received Christ. We don't
have any doubt that He has. He raised Him from the dead.
He seated Him at His own right hand. He, therefore, has purged
our sins. We trust Him for that. We have
no other hope but what we find in Christ. And finding Christ
to be our hope, we have confidence and we joy, we glory, we boast
in tribulations because we know that these tribulations are working
in us They come from God who is good. They must be good for
us because he gave his son for us by his eternal love of us. Therefore, even the trouble,
like Job told his wife, have we received good from the Lord's
hand? Shall we not receive evil also? Of course we will. But that which seems evil to
us, that tribulation, that trouble, that uncertainty, that unrest
that we find in our life because of those troubles is quieted. when we see Christ is all of
our hope. And so we glory in tribulations
because in the tribulation, God works this patience of faith,
this enduring standing under his promises, standing under
the confidence we have in Christ, even in trouble. So even though
troubles are not welcome, in the sense that they cause us
grief, sorrow, uncertainty, anxiety, Yet, even in those troubles,
we find comfort and confidence, and we look forward still with
expectation, and we cling to what God has said in Christ,
and we come to God by Him. So that is the standing under,
the patient faith that we have, enduring faith. Abraham had it,
didn't he? God spoke to him at age 75, and
it wasn't until he was almost 100 when Isaac was born, and
he learned through those 25 years to walk in faith, enduring, trusting
God to fulfill his word, that his word concerning the promise
in Christ would be fulfilled through his son Isaac. So that
even though he and Sarah were dead to have children, God brought
forth Isaac out of their barrenness. just like he would bring forth
Christ from the dead for our justification. And so we trust,
we look at our lives, we see no reason for hope in ourselves.
We look away, we see Christ, we see it was God's word, His
doing, and we have confidence. That's an enduring patient, walking
by, like Enoch did, walking with God. But here, he also says,
we not only have patience, but this patience leads us to experience. Troubles bring patience and faith,
and that patience brings experience. And experience here means approving.
It means approving of God's faithfulness, not only to give his son for
us, but to save us to the uttermost by him, and to continually provide
to us this grace of faith to look to Christ, so that we long
for him, we trust in him, we hope in him, and we walk with
him. And so that proving proves God's
faithfulness to us, but it also shows us that in God's faithfulness
in giving us this continually feeding by His Spirit us this
grace so that we're enabled to look to Christ and hope in Him,
outside of our own reasons for confidence, outside of ourselves
for reasons for confidence, but finding it all in Christ, that
action or that operation of God's Spirit in our lives proves, it
gives us a confirmation that the hope God has given us in
Christ is sure. So we walk. We're proving that
God is proving himself in our trouble and proving his faithfulness
to us and giving us this grace of faith to walk. And so this
experience leads to hope, a greater confirmation that God will fulfill
his word. Now, all of this comes to us
because of the ministration of the Spirit. Verse 5, Romans 5. Verse 1, I'll read it again.
Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ. It's all Christ doing. By whom? By Christ. Also, we have access
by faith into this grace, wherein we stand and rejoice in hope
of the glory of God. And not only, but we glory in
tribulations, also knowing that tribulation works patience, patience
experience, that proving and experience hope, that settled,
confident expectation. And hope, the hope we have, we're
not disappointed, hope maketh not ashamed, because, and here's
why all these things in trouble are reinforced to us, God has
loved us. And his love to us is known in
the death of his son, which he offered himself of his own doing
when we were sinners, when we were enemies, when we had no
strength. In spite of our condition, the Lord saved us out of His
eternal love in Christ. And if He reconciled us through
the death of His Son when we were His enemies, He shall most
certainly save us now by His life. Nothing's going to separate
us from the will, the purpose, the work, the love of God. It's
certain. It directs us all back to God's
faithfulness. He's faithful to himself, to
his person. He's faithful to his word, to
his promises. He's faithful to his son. He's
faithful to his people. And so this is the doctrine of
our salvation. Now look at Matthew chapter 14,
because God has given us a living illustration of this in the historical
account of what happened here in Matthew 14. He turned to Matthew 14. I'm
going to get back to my notes here. I wanted to summarize what
happened here. Let me just read it for you because
there's quite a bit of scripture here I want to read from verse
1 so that you get the whole context to verse 33. Matthew 14, verse
1, at that time, Herod the tea truck heard of
the fame of Jesus. And he said to his servants,
this is John the Baptist. He's risen from the dead. And
therefore mighty works do show forth themselves in him. For
Herod had laid hold on John and bound him and put him in prison.
And for Herodias' sake, his brother Philip's wife, which Herod had
married unlawfully. For John said to him, it is not
lawful for thee to have her. And when he would have put him
to death, he feared the multitude. Herod was going to put John the
Baptist to death, but he feared the multitude because they counted
John as a prophet. But when Herod's birthday was
kept, the daughter of Herodias danced before them and pleased
Herod, whereupon he promised, with an oath, to give her whatsoever
she would ask. And she, being instructed before
of her mother, said, Give me here John Baptist's head and
a charger. And the king was sorry nevertheless
for his oath's sake. and them which sat with him at
meet, he commanded it to be given to her, and he sent and beheaded
John in prison. And his head was brought in a
charger and given to the damsel, and she brought it to her mother,
and his disciples came and took up the body and buried it and
went and told Jesus." What sorrow, what grief, what unsettling this
must have been for the disciples of John, who heard him speak
of Christ who would come, and then their beloved master, John,
as their master, and they were his disciples, they left John
at this time, and they took all that was bothering them about
this, and they told Jesus. What a lesson this is to us.
This is what we do. And this is what's gonna happen
in the next part of this chapter. We tell Jesus. This is always
the instruction God gives us from his word. Tell Jesus. Verse 13. When Jesus heard of
it, he departed thence by ship into a desert place apart. And
when the people had heard thereof, they followed him on foot out
of the cities. And Jesus went forth and saw
a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them,
and he healed their sick. So it seems as if the Lord Jesus,
on hearing what Herod cruelly did to John, left with his disciples
to go into a desert place apart with him, alone. But the multitude
followed him. This was always the case. The
multitude was coming to Jesus. And he saw them, and he had compassion
on them, and he therefore healed their sick. See the compassion
of the Lord. He takes no thought of his own
needs, but he sees the needs of the people, and he meets those
needs. Verse 15, And when it was evening,
his disciples came to him, saying, This is a desert place, and the
time is now past. Send the multitude away, that
they may go into the villages and buy themselves vittles. But
Jesus said to them, They need not depart. Give ye them to eat. Notice that Lord Jesus tells
his disciples to feed the multitude. The Lord tells us to feed his
sheep, doesn't he? How are we gonna do that? How
could the disciples have done this? It's an impossible task,
isn't it? Well, go to the one who gave
you the command. Verse 17, and they say to him,
we have here but five loaves and two fishes. And he said,
bring them to me. And he commanded the multitude
to sit down on the grass, and he took the five loaves and the
two fishes, and looking up to heaven, the Lord Jesus, blessed,
and he break, and he gave the loaves to his disciples, and
the disciples to the multitude. Hear the gospel. The Lord Jesus
Christ sees with compassion the multitude. He heals their sick. He breaks bread. He blesses the
bread. He gives that bread to his disciples,
and they give it to the multitude, and this is the way the multitude
is fed. And this is the way the gospel
goes, isn't it? So you see how in this historical account, God
is setting up how he will bring the gospel into the world by
the Lord Jesus Christ, by his ministry. It says in verse 20,
And they did all eat, all the multitude, and they were filled,
so that all that Christ did in breaking the bread and blessing
it completely satisfied all the needs of these hungry people,
so that they were filled, and, he says, and they took up the
fragments that remained, 12 baskets full, and they that had eaten
were for about 5,000 men beside women and children. That's a
large number of people. There's no possibility that you
can take five loaves or biscuits as they probably were, and a
couple of small fish and feed 5,000 men with all the women
and children. That's probably more than 10,000
people. But the Lord did it. He did it through his miraculous
work in breaking the bread. Now, verse 22. Here's what happened. Christ feeds the multitude. In
verse 22, in a straight way, Jesus constrained his disciples
to get into a ship. It wasn't a suggestion. It was a constraint, constraining. He constrained them to get into
a ship. And then it says here that he,
and that to get into the ship and to go before him to the other
side while he sent the multitudes away. And when he had sent the
multitudes away, Jesus went up into a mountain apart to pray. And when the evening was come,
he was there alone. So what happened here? The Lord
constrained his disciples, get into the ship and go before me
across the sea. Meanwhile, he went up into a
mountain by himself to pray. The disciples were sent in a
ship onto the sea. Christ goes up into a mountain
by himself to pray. What do you think happened next?
Well, it says in verse 24, but the ship was now in the midst
of the sea, tossed with waves, for the wind was contrary. The
wind was opposing the disciples and the ship. And in the fourth
watch, the last watch of the night, it seemed like the very
last time of hope, walking, Jesus came to them, went to them, walking
on the sea. What was the sea doing? It was
tumultuous. It was tempestuous. The waves
were rising. The wind had kicked it up. It
was opposing the disciples. And Jesus comes walking on this
tempestuous, opposing sea. It was under his feet. He ruled
over it. He had power over it. And yet
he had constrained his disciples to get into a ship and set sail
on this sea. And it was at the last watch
of the night that he came to them walking on the sea. And
when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled,
because they didn't know who it was, saying, it is a spirit. And they cried out for fear.
But straightway, Jesus spake to them, saying, be of good cheer. It is I. Be not afraid. It's
one thing to not be afraid, but it's another thing entirely to
be of good cheer, isn't it? But we glory in tribulations
also, don't we? We just read in Romans 5, knowing
that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and
experience hope, and hope does not leave us ashamed. because
the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost,
which has given us, for when we were yet without strength
in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. You see? See the
overlap? In the book of Hebrews, chapter
three and four, the people refused to believe God in the wilderness
when they came to the borders of Canaan. The giants are in the land. The
enemy is too strong for us. And they were complaining against
God and threatening Joshua and Caleb, wanting to stone them.
The gospel was preached to them, but it wasn't mixed with faith.
And they fell and perished in the wilderness because they wouldn't
believe God. And here the Lord Jesus Christ comes to his disciples
on the sea, walking over it, with power over it, in control
of it. And he speaks peace to them.
He says, it is I. I'm the one who constrained you.
I sent you in a ship on this sea. And so he comes walking
on it, evidently, obviously having power over it. Have we received
good from the Lord's hand? Shall we not receive evil also?
And it will be for our good because our master sent his disciples
into this sea. What is this ship? Well, it's
the place of safety. But the ship is tossed. If they
weren't in the ship, they would have certainly drowned. What
does it remind you of? Does it remind you, for example,
of the ark? Does it remind you of the fact
that God constrained Noah to get into the ark when he brought
the flood of judgment upon the world and the ark was lifted
up and the pitch that God had put, told Noah to put on the
ark, which word means atonement, that God's The floods of God's
judgment on the world fell upon the ark, but because Noah and
his family were in the ark, it was lifted up upon the waters
and saved. They were saved in the ark. They
were saved in Christ by his atoning work. And the world was destroyed. The judgment came upon them outside
of Christ. And here the disciples are sent
by the Lord Jesus, compelled, constrained to get into the ship. Because the trouble is coming,
he said to his disciples in John chapter 16, 33, in the world
you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome
the world. And this is what he's saying
here. Trouble comes. In fact, it comes by the design,
the ordained will of God into the lives of his people. But
he compels them and constrains them to stay in Christ. When
Paul was on the ship and the ship was about to be broken up,
he told the mariners, there were 273 people on that ship in the
book of Acts, he said, stay in the ship. If you stay in the
ship, there will be no loss of life. Again, it's pointing to
the same thing. God's people, his sheep, the
church, will be kept in the ship in Christ. So he compels them
to this. It's his purpose for them to
endure the opposing winds of Satan and his kingdom and the
evil of this world. But as Rommel said earlier, nothing
can separate us from the love of God. Though the mountains
be removed, though they be cast into the middle of the sea, we
will not fear. God is our refuge and strength.
COVID is not going to keep God's will from bringing good in our
lives through everything. And we have to understand that
these things are simply troubles. Our concerns, our fears, the
government's constraints, it doesn't matter. These things
are simply tools in the master's hand. And he walks above them
and uses them to bring the patience of faith and the proving of his
faithfulness and approving the confirmation of our expectation
in Christ because it's all in Christ. And so he goes on. Matthew 14, it's I, be of good
cheer, it is I, be not afraid. Verse 28, and Peter answered
him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on
the water, not swimming, I want to walk on the water too. If
it's you, Lord, then command me, command my salvation. Make these troubles, the outworking
of your purpose in my life to bring me more and more to Christ. Bring me to yourself over these
troubles. You see the prayer? And so he
says, bid me come to thee on the water. If you command, then
I can come to you on this water. The opposing world, the accusing
devil, the sinful nature, The Lord Jesus Christ, as Paul says,
who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God
through Jesus Christ, our Lord. And so he says, Lord, bid me.
If it's you, bid me. If this trouble is from you,
Lord, then bid me to come to you over it. work it out for
my good according to your purpose, it's your word, it's your salvation,
you gave it to me, it's all by grace, command me to come." And
the Lord Jesus said, come, come. There he has it, there's the
word, there's the bidding. And when Peter was come down
out of the ship, He walked on the water to go to Jesus. There's, that's amazing, isn't
it? The power of Christ holding Peter up on the water. He had
powerful faith at this point, didn't he? No, not really, but
it was the power of the Lord that kept him from sinking. So
Peter in verse 30, when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid. There's always a mixture of unbelief
in our faith, isn't there? At that time in Sarah, Abraham's
wife, Sarah's life, when it seemed incredulous that at the age of
90, she could bear a child, and she heard the Lord speak about
this to Abraham while she was in the tent, she had a moment
of unbelief. She laughed. How could that possibly
be? But the Lord's answer, is there
anything too hard for the Lord? And when Abraham took counsel
with his wife, Sarah, concerning the long time that it had been
since God promised and he had no heir, how is it gonna be?
He must, needs take his slave woman, Hagar, and through her
bring about the promise. But that was a moment of unbelief
in both Sarah and Abraham's life. And yet Abraham was strong in
faith. He believed that he who had promised was able to keep
his promise and therefore it was fulfilled. And when Thomas,
after the resurrection of Christ, heard that he had been raised
from the dead, he couldn't believe. He was doubting until the Lord
Jesus himself appeared to him and showed him his hands and
his feet and his side. And he said, be not doubt, do
not doubt, but believe only. Believe. And Thomas, he said,
my Lord, my God. So every time there's this trial
in our lives, what do we experience? We know it's true, but there's
this element of doubt in our lives. There's this trial of
faith that causes us, it seemed, as a setback. And we look at
our own response and we think we failed. We do fail. And so,
when Peter looked at the waves, like the children of Israel looked
at the people of Canaan, they said, there's no possibility
we're going to enter here. But Peter wasn't like them. He did have unbelief, but he
wasn't void of faith. Because see how the trial of
faith in his life proved his faith. When he saw the wind boisterous,
he was afraid and beginning to sink. He cried, saying, Lord,
save me. It was an automatic response.
That's what faith does. The righteous cry, call upon
me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and thou
shalt glorify me. From Psalm 50, verse 15, and
Psalm 34, verse 17. God saves his people. He will
not let the righteous fall. He who gave them faith will not
take it back. The gifts and callings of God
are without repentance. God is not a man that he should
lie, neither the son of man that he should repent. Has he said? Will he not do it? Has he spoken?
Will he not bring it to pass? It's because of the Lord's mercies,
because of his faithfulness towards us that we're saved. And so he
cried. And that cry was the response
of faith that God had given him, the operation of his work in
Peter's life, and he didn't go through the mental gyrations
necessary. It was brought out of trouble
by the grace of God, and that was the proving of God's grace
in trouble in Peter's life. He looked to Christ and cried
to him, Lord, save me. We don't think, as God teaches
us through these troubles, that we are going to somehow deliver
ourselves by our own strength and faithfulness. We weren't
saved that way. When you were enemies, you were
reconciled to God by the death of His Son. Much more than being
reconciled shall you be saved by His life. It was his death,
and now it's his life. It's all of Christ. Lord, save
me. What a simple prayer. Grace boils
it down to the essentials, doesn't it? Lord, save me. I'm sinking. I will perish unless you save
me. Verse 31, and immediately Jesus
stretched forth his hand. What a strength he had to jerk
up this fisherman out of the waters in the raging sea and
bring him to himself. And you know that when he did
that, Peter was clinging to him. But it wasn't Peter's strength,
but it was his response to grace in his life. He clung the more
tightly to the Lord Jesus Christ. So Christ reached forth his hands,
caught him, and said to him, O thou of little faith. Now that had to be a humbling
observation, wasn't it? I'm sure that Peter wasn't resisting
that assessment at that time, it's true. But I'm so glad to
be held now by your strong hand. And then he asked him this question,
wherefore didst thou doubt? Why do we doubt? There's a very
important principle that God has given us in scripture. And
that principle is this, all that God is as God, He is to us in
Christ. And all that Christ is as the
Son of God and as our mediator, He is for us to God. If we ever get hold of that,
then even though we find nothing in ourselves, which ultimately
is true of us, but we have to discover it, bit by bit, experience
and trouble, Then we see that everything God
is, He is to us in Christ. The fullness of the Godhead bodily
dwells in Him. And you are complete in Him.
Amazing grace. All that God is, He is to us
in Christ. And all that Christ is as the Son of God, He is for
us to God. God made him our high priest,
and having made him our high priest, he made him our high
priest to offer for our sins in things pertaining to God.
He himself offered himself to God for us. It was his blood
that made atonement for our sins. He brought us in reconciliation
to God. He is our righteousness. By him
we're adopted as sons of God, and by him we're made heirs of
God. All blessings are in Christ. All the promises of God are in
Christ. Everything from God to us is given to us in Christ.
And everything God requires of us is provided for us by Christ
to God. So this is an important, very
important thing. And so when we see this, this
operation of trouble in our lives, it always brings us back to this.
My only hope is Christ. All that I have is Christ. And
everything God has for me is in Christ. And all God requires
of me, He gets from me from Christ. And so what God thinks of us
is what He thinks of His Son. And what God blesses His Son
with, He blesses us with Him. He gives us all that He deserves.
And this is the fundamental principle. This is the gospel. Substitution. Our surety stands for us. Offers
himself for us and receives eternal redemption for us in his own
offering. And so when troubles come, we
cry, Lord save me. He reaches out the hand of his
grace. He points us back to himself. Be of good cheer. It is I. Be
not afraid. Why do you doubt then? Has he
ever failed? Is there something deficient
in Christ? Something he hasn't done God requires of us? Something
less than eternal glory and eternal life in him? Is God going to
fail to give us these things because of Christ alone? No.
Why then do we doubt? Why would we doubt God who cannot
lie and cannot fail, who never changes, How can we doubt Christ,
whose blood it is that took away our sins, whose obedience in
shedding his blood made us righteous, whose life in himself is our
life, whose wisdom is our wisdom, whose holiness before God is
our holiness, who works all things together
for our good? Nothing can separate us from
that love. Nothing can separate us from his purpose of grace.
Why do we doubt? Look again, look again to the
Lord Jesus Christ. It says in the next verse here,
and when they were come into the ship, the Lord Jesus and
Peter, the wind ceased. Christ, when he offered himself
to God, he rose again, he ascended on high, he makes intercession
for us. That's the mountain which Jesus went up into to pray. While
the disciples were constrained to get into the ship and go out
onto the sea, while we live in the wilderness of this world,
the Lord Jesus intercedes for us in heaven. And when he comes
to us in the midst of these trials, throughout our lives, through
the trying of our faith, and the perfecting of our patience
in faith, and our hope, our expectation in Christ, then he comes to us,
and in that last hour of the night, the Lord Jesus will come
again. And when he takes us, and brings
us to himself, and his whole church with him, then the winds
of this world will cease. The trouble will cease, and we'll
be with Christ forever. And he says, then they that were
in the ship came and they worshiped him, saying of a truth, thou
art the son of God. Amazing, let's pray. Lord, we
thank you for your purpose of grace and your work of grace
and your sustaining grace for the work of the Lord Jesus that
he is our hope, he is our salvation, our rest, Everything has been
done by Him. He obtained the salvation that
He worked out and gives it to us because He died to give us
His inheritance. Help us not to doubt, but look
always and ever to Christ. And help us to boast even in
trouble, knowing that these troubles work for us a far greater hope
of glory, knowing that Christ confirms to us His own promises
in these things, so that we are ever pointed back to Him. And
He is made dear to us, and Your faithfulness appears great to
us in Your grace. We pray, Lord, that in the troubles
of our lives we would be given grace to call, as Peter did,
Lord, save me. And look again and know that
we can have peace because you were the one who sent these things
and you designed it for our good and for your glory. In Jesus'
name we pray, amen.