Fix Your Eyes, Take His Hand

[Pause] You hear me? Yeah. Yeah. Today I'm going to talk to you about Faith vs Fear with the story of how someone has walked on water because they have faith in the Lord of Jesus. So this is the church right now today, this church. And I want to tell you about the night, eleven men stayed dry and one man got wet. And while the one man who got wet is the one we're still talking about, two thousand years later. Can you please get your Bibles open or your smart devices to the Bible app? We're going to be focusing on Matthew 14 verse 22. It will also be on the screens. So first of all, what's the storm? Everybody in this room has one. Answer it in your head, don't just nod at me. So for us children, some of the storms may be the friendship group we used to feel safe, but now it feels like we are walking on glass. What's happening at home, you don't tell out loud, but you've got it in there. And the 1am schoolway, comparing yourself to others on your smart devices. So that's for children. For adults it's quite different. It's like children, fundings, money, all that marriage, your kids, all that stuff. So I'm going to read you through Matthew chapter 14 verse 22. "Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side while he dismissed the crowd. I'm going to continue on to 23 and 24 verses. After he had dismissed them, he went up onto a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night he was there alone. And the boat was already a considerable distance away from the land, buffered and waved because the wind was against it." Verse 22, "Jesus made the disciples get into the boat. Didn't give them suggestion." It wasn't suggestion, he made them. So no suggestions, not volunteers, he put them on that boat. The disciples were not in the storm because they messed up, they were in the storm because they obeyed. They obeyed Jesus' Jesus by getting on the boat. Sometimes the storm is the consequences of disobedience and sometimes the storm is the address the obedience took you to. Remember what just happened, before this, if you guys, you probably wouldn't know, but Jesus fed over 5,000 people the night before this and they still had 12 baskets of leftovers that they carried onto the boat. So can we look at Mark chapter 6 verse 52, "For they had not understood about the loaves, their hearts were hardened." There's a difference trusting who Jesus is. One gets you through an evening, the other gets you through a storm. You go where you look. Simple. He saw them, the people on the boat, Jesus saw them before they saw him. The Sea of Galilee, I think I'm saying that right, over 200 meters below sea level, boiling hills and cold air funnels down hit warm water. The violence in minutes, not the weather, a wall. Can you look at Matthew, well, you don't have to, but Matthew 14, Matthew chapter 14 verses 25. Shortly before dawn, Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. And then Mark chapter 6 verse 48, he saw the disciples straining the oars because the wind was against them. The fourth watch, they were watching at 3am to 6am, was the darkest hour, right before the light and right before it gets too dark. They were rowing for nearly nine hours, and on the eighth hour they thought Jesus wouldn't become, and some of them did anyway. From a mountainside in the dark, across miles of open water, for him, he saw them. You never have once been out of this sight, from not at 3am, not at hour nine, not in the bit you haven't told anyone. He's seen it all. Who walks on water? The sea is chaos, the deep God spirit hovers over Genesis 1. When the Bible wants to picture everything out of human control, it says the sea. Exactly one person in the Old Testament walks on it. Job chapter 9 verse 8, "He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea." This isn't a magic trick. It's a claim. He's doing the one thing the scriptures say God alone does. Matthew chapter 14 verse 26, "When the disciples saw Him walking on the water, they were terrified. It's a ghost," they said, "and cried out in fear." They've been praying for rescue all night, and when rescue finally arrives, what they do, they scream. They scream. We've all done that. No one can say they haven't done it unless you're just a newborn baby. "Few immediately said to them, 'Take courage, it is I. Don't be afraid.'" "Take courage, it is I. Don't be afraid." Two commands wrapped around one statement of identity. "It is I. I am." He is saying, "I am." The phrase of God uses himself through the Old Testament, echoing the name given to Moses at the bush. The answer to fear is not a better forecast. It's a bigger Jesus. Let that sit for a moment as I repeat it. The answer to fear is not a better forecast, it's a bigger Jesus. You go where you look. Anyone learning to drive, ride a bike, motorbike, every instructor teaches it early. You go where you look. You look over there, your eyes, you go over there. You'll fix the hazards and you steer onto it. Target fixation, hands follow eyes without asking permission. Since when does your hand ask permission to follow your eyes? If I'm looking over there, I can point over there. But as my hand hasn't asked for permission, it's just what you're fixated on doing. In Hebrews, I think I'm saying that right, chapters 12 verses 1 to 2, "Let us run with perseverance on the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus." And two Corinthians, chapter 5 verse 7, "For we live by faith, not by sight." Faith is not pretending the wind isn't there. Faith isn't pretending the wind isn't there. Faith is choosing where you fix your eyes while it's blowing. Fix your eyes. Fix your eyes on something. Now, next thing, get out of the boat. Take the step, get out of the boat. Matthew chapter 14 verse 28 to 29. Matthew cries out, "Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "Tell me to come to you on the water." Jesus said, "Come," he said. Then Peter got down off the boat, walked on the water and came towards Jesus. Peter didn't ask, "Jesus, can you calm the storm? Jesus, can you get a safety? Jesus, can you do something to help us?" No. He asked Jesus to call out to him. "Tell me to come to you." That is not a request for rescue. That is a request for proximity. The most terrifying thing he's ever seen is his first inkling, "I want to be over there with Jesus." "Tell me to come." Not planning to jump, asking to be sent. What holds a man up in water isn't his confidence. It's Christ's command. One word. Come. 11 men stayed dry. Peter is the only disciple in history to fail at walking in water because he's the only disciple in history to try. The other 11 got a boat ride. Peter got a memory. Nobody in the boat got to critique him. Why? Because nobody in the boat got wet. The loudest voices about your obedience come from inside the boat. Do not take water walking advice from someone that's never even touched the water with their feet or walked on it. The boat only became the wrong place when Jesus said, "Come." It was safe. Yes. Some people have jobs on the boat, all that. But when Jesus said, "Come," that's when the boat was the unsafe one and they were safer to walk. So what's your boat? The faith that costs nothing. The Sundays, the songs, you come here just to pray and then to be a decent human being and never once do anything that falls apart. Later, when exams are done, I'll do it. When this is done, when I've got the money to do this, blah blah blah, all that. The group, the friendship pulling you to something you don't want to do and when you want to do this and you're peer pressured into doing that. Fix your eyes and take the step. Now take his hand. He catches sinking people. Matthew chapter 14 verse 30, "But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and beginning to sink and cried out, 'Lord, save me.' When he saw the wind, you don't see wind, but when you saw the storm, when he saw it, he then cried out, 'Lord, save me.' But that's because he started sinking after he made his focus on the storm and not on Jesus. Jesus was there, but he focused on the storm and that made Jesus start to shrink. Nothing about the storm changed. The same wind in verse 29 and when he walked on as verse 30 when he sank. The conditions didn't change. His focus did. Peter didn't sink because the storm got bigger. He sunk because Jesus got smaller. Nobody decides to stop trusting God. No one. The fear just becomes bigger and then becomes the biggest object on the screen and Jesus shrinks into the background. The shortest prayer in the Bible was said, "Three words, Lord save me." No worship is set to warm up, no prayer about deserving to ask, a mouth full of sea of Galatians, three words, and that is enough, "Lord save me." Three words, that's the qualification. Psalm 107 verses 28 to 29, "When they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and He brought them out of their distress, He sealed the storm to a whisper." Romans 10 verse 13, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Immediately, Matthew chapter 14 verse 31, "Immediately Jesus reached out His hand and caught Him. You have little faith," He said. "Why do you doubt? Why do you doubt?" Jesus didn't consider His options. He didn't let Peter sink and then pull him up so that he could learn his lesson. No, He must have been close enough to Peter to be able to reach Him, but because Peter was focused on the storm, He did not sink. He did not sink alone in the middle of the lake. He sank within arms reach of God. Psalm 18, chapter 18 verse 16, "He reached down from a high, He reached down from a high and took hold of me. He drew me out of the deep waters. Little faith, not no faith, I've heard of little faith preach cold and disappointed. Read it in context and you can't hear it that way." Jesus says it while he's holding onto him. Peter isn't corrected from the shore, he's corrected from inside of the rescue. In his hand in Christ's hand, feet still over the deep. That's not condemnation, that's a father who's already got you saying you don't need to be afraid. Not little faith, little faith, not no faith. Peter has more faith in his lowest points than the 11 who never left the boat. Not the last time he sinks either. He'll stand by the fire and swear he's never met Jesus. And Jesus finds him on a beach, offers him breakfast and gives him back his calling. Luke chapter 22 verses 31 to 32. Simon, Simon, Satan has asked you to sift all of you all as wheat, but I have prayed for you and when I have turned back strengthen your brothers. 1 Peter chapter 5 to 7, cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. When you have turned back, not if, Jesus factors in the failures and keeps the calling anyway. The man who leaned into the water is the man who teaches it to the church. The worst night of the water may be the thing God uses to hold somebody else up later. And then the wind stops. Matthew chapter 14 verses 32 to 33. And when they climbed onto the boat, the wind died down. Those who were in the boat worshipped him saying, "You truly are the son of God." Notice when, not before, when he steps out onto the boat, the storm shrinks. The winds died down. Peter walked in the storm, sank in the storm, was caught in the storm. Peter walked in the storm, sank in the... sunk in the storm and was caught in the storm. The whole miracle happened before the waters changed. So stop waiting for the wind to drop before you trust him. The wind drops later. Jesus comes first. The response is worship. First time in Matthew, disciples together say it out loud. Five thousand people fed and didn't get out of the storm. Storms don't just test what you believe about Jesus. They reveal it. Fix your eyes, take the step, take his hand. Which challenge is yours? Fix your eyes. The storm, real and exhausted. The problem is where your eyes are not rebellion, fixation, you don't need new circumstances. You need a new focus. Focus on Jesus. 2. Take the step. You've heard, come. Jesus has shouted, has said, come and you haven't moved. A conversation to have, a habit to end, and a yes to serving, landing, giving, going, standing at the edge, doing the mass. It's never added up and it will never add up. The water has never held anybody up, only his word. 3. Take his hand. You're already sinking, swimming quietly, so no one notices. Sunday face on, going down underneath, convinced you're too far gone to call out. Peter knocked three words out and that's all it took. The hero of Matthew 14 is not the man who walked on water, it's the hero and the hand that caught him. Peter's faith got him out of the boat. Peter's faith did not get him back in. Jesus did. You will not be saved by the strength of your faith. You will be saved by the strength of the one your faith is reaching for. Now the response. I would like you to close your eyes and bring back to the thing you thought about the start, your storm, the one you named in your head half an hour ago. Now say three words to Jesus in your own head right now. Lord, save me. He's not waiting for a better sentence. One, if your eyes are in the wrong place, lift a hand where you are. No one's looking. Pray briefly over them. Refocus, peace and courage. So if you're looking the wrong direction, raise your hand while no one's looking. And pray. Number two, he said, "Come and you've stayed sat down. Come and stand at the front, physically move. Sometimes your feet teach your heart what obedience feels like. Let them come. Don't feel the silence. If you feel that he stayed come and you haven't stayed sat down, please come to the front." And if you're sinking and never taken his hand, maybe in this church your whole life and you've never once cried out, he is close enough to reach. Come forward. Grab one of the team or one of the young people leading today. Let them pray for you. We're going to pray of the response simply enough to let's pray. Jesus, I've been looking at the wind. Today I'm looking at you. You said, "Come, I'm not swimming. I'm reaching. Lord, save me. Amen." Now, one more thing. I want you to stand up. I want you, as you sit up, to fix your eyes on something. Anything. Now, I want you to take a big step forward, if you can. And I want you to take his hand. Amen. Thank you, everyone.