Reading Assignment: Matthew 14:24-36
Truth: Jesus cares for His people.
Key verse: Matthew 14:27
Four parts of the story:
1. Walk: Jesus walks on water.
2. Fear: The disciples feared seeing Jesus on the water. Peter feared the wind.
3. Worship: The disciples worshiped Jesus as the Son of God.
4. Healing: Jesus healed the sick at Gennesaret.
Prayer Suggestions:
1. Worship Jesus as God.
2. Thank Jesus for His care.
Transcript
All right, let me pray for us and we'll begin our time.
Our Lord, thank You for Your word. Thank You that day after day, we can look to You and hear Your voice through Your word. We pray that You would indeed speak to us, because we are here to listen to You to align our lives after Your word and to believe in You, trust in You, and to keep Your word. And as we approach You with that kind of heart of repentance and obedience, we pray that You would mold us more and more; mold us into the kind of people that You want us to be, that You would conform us to the likeness of Jesus. So we pray that You would guide us during this time and we pray for Your blessing. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
The next passage to be read is the remainder of Matthew Chapter 14, which is verses 24 through 36. Matthew 14:24-36. The key verse is found in verse 27, where Jesus says these words to disciples who were frightened, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.” That's the central truth I want to emphasize today. Let me state the truth this way: the Son of God cares for His people. There are four parts to the story today. First, Jesus walks on the water. This is indeed the famous passage about Jesus walking on water. Second, there is fear. Third, there is worship. And fourth, there is healing. Walk, fear, worship, and healing. Those are the four parts.
First, the walk. This is the story of Jesus walking on water. The background to the story is what we covered last time, which is the feeding of the 5000 and the night that Jesus spent in prayer. As you would recall, before Jesus dismisses the 5000, He sends the disciples away to the other side of the lake. Then after He has dismissed the crowd, Jesus goes up to the mountain to pray, and He spends the whole night in prayer. Matthew then tells us that Jesus went to go catch up with the disciples. This was in the 4th watch of the night, Matthew tells us. That's kind of strange language to us today. The people in the 1st century world divided up the night-time hours into four parts. Roughly speaking, the first watch went from sunset to about 9:00 PM, something like 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM. Then the second watch from 9:00 to midnight. Then the next three hours would be the third watch and then the 4th watch would be those final three hours before sunrise. And so here's Jesus in the 4th watch of the night, which is that final quarter of the night, and He catches up with the disciples not by hopping onto another boat, but walking on the water. Matthew also tells us that the disciples were having a rough time on the sea because the wind was contrary to them. As a result, the boat was being battered by the waves. But here’s Jesus walking on water. Now, if you're asking, “How is this even possible? How does Jesus walk on water?” Well, the simple answer is it's not possible. This is a miracle. Jesus is not walking on a shallow side of the lake, because later we find out that Peter nearly sinks and drowns in that same water. And so Jesus is doing something that is physically impossible, and He does this because He is the Son of God. Jesus defies the natural laws of physics because He is God. This is His world and so He is able to do the impossible.
It's in this scene that we encounter fear, which is the second part of the story. There are two incidents of fear here. The first response of fear comes up when the disciples see Jesus walking on water. They don't recognize Him at first, and thus they are terrified. They think that they were seeing a ghost. And so they cry out in fear. How will Jesus respond? Matthew tells us this. When they cried out in fear, Jesus immediately calmed their fears and He told them those words from verse 27 that I read earlier, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.” Jesus spoke this to quell their fears.
Then Simon Peter asks Jesus, “Lord if it's You, command me to come to You on the water.” Peter sometimes says strange things, and this I think is one of those times. But Jesus actually responds in the affirmative, and He tells him to come to Him. And so Peter steps out from the boat onto the water and he actually begins to walk towards Jesus. Peter is actually walking on water. And then we encounter the second incident of fear. As Peter was walking on water, Matthew tells us that he saw the wind (now, you can't see wind, wind is invisible; but Peter sees the effects of the wind on the water), he begins to fear and he begins to sink. Out of that state of fear, Peter cried out to Jesus, “Lord, save me.” And once again, Jesus responds immediately. He grabs a hold of Peter's hand and then pulls him up and rescues him. Then Jesus speaks these words to correct Peter, “You of little faith. Why did you doubt?” We'll come back and talk about this statement a little later. But you can see that Jesus cared for His disciples in their time of need. We first see this when they were frightened, thinking they saw a ghost, then we see Jesus coming to Peter’s aid immediately when Peter was sinking and cried for help. In both times Jesus responds immediately to show His care for His disciples.
Then we come to the third part which is worship. As soon as Jesus steps into the boat with Peter, the wind stopped blowing. The disciples on the boat saw this and they worshiped Jesus. They realized who they were with. This was the Son of God in human flesh. They said to Jesus, “You are certainly God's Son.” I think we would have probably had the same reaction if we saw all of this happening. But the disciples recognized once again that Jesus was no mere man. He was also truly the Son of God. Then they reach the other side of the Sea of Galilee, and we're told the fourth part of the story.
Fourth part is healing. Jesus healed the sick. When they get to the other side to a city called Gennesaret, the people find out that Jesus had arrived, and they bring to Him all their sick. And Jesus healed them. Some of them even begged to just touch the fringe of Jesus' garment, and Matthew tells us that all who touched it were healed. What's astonishing about this part of the story is that Jesus had lived through one very long and exhausting day. It started with the news of John the Baptist’s beheading. Then He had a full day of ministry contrary to His desire for some time alone with the disciples for a retreat. Then after having healed and taught the crowd, He fed them. Then after dismissing them, He spent the entire night praying on the mountain. Now it’s the wee hours of the morning and He, with the disciples, had just arrived at their destination. Let me just put it this way. Jesus just pulled an all-nighter, to put it mildly. But when He saw the people in need, He served them. This is extraordinary. This is the kind of care Jesus expresses to people in need. We’ve seen multiple dimensions of this. First with the disciples, then with all the sick. This is the kind of care demonstrated by the Son of God.
There are at least two things we learn about Jesus from this text. First, Jesus can do the impossible. He walks on water. He calms the wind. He heals diseases. He does all these things because He is God. And He is God who is worthy of all of our worship, and so we saw that was the proper response of the disciples. And this ought to be our response to Jesus also. Jesus is God, and we should worship Him. This is something we have to come to terms with. We must resolve that Jesus is God. Jesus is not a genie in a bottle who grants our wishes. No; He is God to be worshiped. And we see that here. Second thing we learn about Jesus is that He has a tender care toward His disciples. When they were frightened, He immediately calmed their fears. When Peter was sinking and he cried out, “Lord save me,” Jesus immediately reached out and rescued Peter. Now, what's interesting about Peter is that he lacked faith. Jesus said to him, “You of little faith.” That phrase is used elsewhere to describe someone who has no faith. And yet Jesus helped him. Why does Jesus help someone who has such a little faith or no faith at all? It’s because Peter belonged to Him. Peter's faith hadn't reached maturity yet, but Jesus is going to help him get there. As you would recall, even some time after this incident, when Jesus was arrested and during His trial, Peter denied Jesus three times. Again, he's a man who lacked faith, and yet Jesus restored him to ministry. You can read about that in John Chapter 21. Jesus loved Peter, and He patiently taught him to trust in Him. Peter stumbled and failed many times over again, but Jesus was guiding him to become a man of faith. If you remember, Jesus said to the disciples, in particular to Peter, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” This is what Jesus was doing with Peter. Jesus was molding this man with patience what he was meant to become. All that Peter did was to say yes to Jesus and followed Him when He called him. Then from that point onward, Jesus took him under His wing, as it were, and He patiently taught him, trained him, and forgave him. Even in this scene, Peter lacked faith, yet Jesus kept him around and kept teaching him. The Lord wasn’t going to abandon this man with doubts. And in that state of weakness, when Peter cried out, “Lord, save me,” Jesus rescued him. This is how Jesus deals with His people who come to Him on His terms, not demanding from Jesus that He does this or that for me (as if He were my butler), but who says yes to Jesus when Jesus says, “Come and follow Me.” But even after the initial decision to follow Jesus, Peter wasn't perfect. In his following Jesus, he stumbled badly. But Jesus was patient with him and loved him and cared for him. And Jesus trained him to become the man of faith that he should be. This is how the Lord Jesus Christ is. He loves every person whom the Father has given Him, and He patiently guides them to mature faith and transformation. It's been said that “We are not saved by the strength of our faith, but by the strength of the Savior.” And this is true. It's true of Peter, it's true of many, many after Peter. It's true of me, and I would imagine that it's true of you also.
Well, how might we respond to the Lord in light of what we read here? Number one, we should worship Jesus and we worship Him with our words. We should tell Him that He is God and that He is the one in charge as God, not me, and that my role in His world is to worship, serve, and listen to Him. Second, we can thank Jesus for His care. This is especially true of you if you have turned to Jesus on His terms with a heart of surrender and submission, as His disciples. He has taken us in to care for us, to teach us, to guide us, and to mature us in our faith. How wonderful is that! We should thank Him for this. Jesus always takes care of His people. Jesus has done that for His disciples as we see in this passage, and it is a picture of how He deals with us today. So those are some wonderful things to pray about: to worship Jesus as God and to thank Him for His care.
Let me pray for us and we'll wrap it up for today.
Our Lord, thank You that You have such a deep care for Your people. And we on our part, we just we just want to surrender our hearts to You, to no longer demand our own way but to yield to You and to obey Your word. You are worthy of this kind of response because You are God. And we thank You that You never abandon Your people. You love Your people, even when we are so far from being men of faith as we should be. You patiently teach us and guide us. We thank You for being such a gentle shepherd to us. We thank You for these precious words this morning. Help us to know You for who You truly are and depend on You, because You are worthy of all our trust. Thank You for teaching us this morning. In Your name, we pray. Amen.
All right. That is it for today. May the Lord bless you all, and I'll see you on Friday.