MIRACLES
WALKING ON THE WATER
DR. JIM DIXON
MATTHEW 14:22-36
MAY 15, 1983
The wind was blowing. The waves were beating against the boat. It was dark. It was night. It was 1950 years ago. The disciples were trying to cross the Sea of Galilee. They had left Jesus on the grassy slopes of the eastern shore, and they were alone, and they were in trouble. The Sea of Galilee was infamous and notorious for its violent storms. Cold, hard winds would blow from the north from the snowy ranges of Lebanon and Herman. They would blow through the valleys of the Perian Hills and down into the Sea of Galilee. Moist winds would come from the west from the Mediterranean and dry winds from the east, from the deserts. The winds would “toss” the sea so that travel over the surface of the lake became virtually impossible. It was in the midst of one of those violent storms that the disciples found themselves out in the center of the lake. They were afraid. In the middle of the night, at the beginning of the fourth watch which would have been around 3:00 A.M., in the midst of their struggle, Jesus came to them. He came walking on the sea and they were terrified when they saw Him. He said “Take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid.” Peter said, “Lord if it is you, bid me come to you on the water.’ Jesus said “Come.” We are told that Peter got out of the boat. He began to walk on the water but then when he saw the storm and the raging waves and the blowing wind, he became afraid and he began to sink and he cried out “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus reached forth His hand and He caught him. He said, “Oh man of little faith, why did you doubt?” And the scriptures tell us that when they got into the boat, suddenly there was a great calm and the wind, and the waves ceased, and the disciples bowed down. They worshipped Him, saying “Truly you are the Son of God.”
From this miracle, I have three teachings this morning, and the first teaching is this. Life has storms. Even for those of us who are Christians, life has storms. As we move through the sea of life, the wind and the waves are oftentimes against us. In the realm of nature, we are aware that many times there are violent storms. In 1970 an incredible storm hit the coastline of Bangladesh where the Ganges River comes into the Sea of Bengal. More than 1,000,000 lives were lost, that storm was so violent. On the islands of Bola, Chargabar, Haita, and Rah Magati—on those four islands, more than half of the population was annihilated, SO severe was the storm. Storms can be costly. In 1936 a hurricane hit the coast of New England. So powerful was its force that it actually destroyed 350 million trees. Twenty thousand miles of electrical wire was downed, and 26,000 automobiles were damaged or destroyed. When Hurricane Betsy hit the coast of Florida and Louisiana and the Bahamas, it brought about more than $1 billion worth of damage, costing insurance companies more than $750 million. Some of life’s storms are short and tense as in 1965, or in 1956, when in Unionville, Maryland on July 4, at 3:23 P.M., more than 1-1/4 inch of rain fell in one minute. That’s called a heavy rainfall! Some storms are long, and their intensity continues, and they wear us down as in Asam, India when, over a 30-day period, 366 inches of rain fell.
The Bible tells us that nature itself is out of control. It is amok. Nature does not function; it does not operate as it was meant to. We’re told in the eighth chapter of the Book of Romans that “Sin has affected everything in this world.” As it has brought storms in the realm of nature, so it brings storms to the rest of our life. We have storms in our interpersonal relationships. We have storms in our battle to earn bread. We have storms in terms of our physical health and these storms in life touch us all. Some of them are short. Some of them are long, but we all, even as Christians, experience these storms.
In 1978, my oldest brother called me from San Francisco. He and his wife were living in San Francisco at that time, and I could tell from his voice that something was wrong. My mother was visiting him in San Francisco. My father was taking a kayak down the Yukon River in Alaska and down into Northern Canada—1,000 miles. He was doing this with a friend. It seemed perfectly reasonable for him to do that at age 65, I guess. My mother, according to my brother, had just been taken to the hospital and they found a large tumor in one of her kidneys. There was some concern that it might be malignant. My brother, Gary, asked if Barb and I couldn’t fly out, so we flew from Denver to San Francisco, and my other brother Greg and his wife came up from Los Angeles to be with mom. I could tell it was a very hard time for her—the insecurity of it all, and not knowing. She was in tremendous pain. I know she wanted my father to be there. We could not find him. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police tried to find my dad and could not. We prayed with my mother and there was some relative calm as she went into the operating room. It turned out that the tumor was not malignant. She lost one kidney. She’s doing great, even today, but it was a hard time, and when we finally got hold of my father and we told him about it, he cried. I don’t think I’ve ever heard or seen my father cry, but he cried—first of all because I think he was so happy that my mom was alright, but also because he wanted to be there. He would like to have been with her in that time of need.
There are storms in life. Our family has perhaps had mild storms compared to some families. Barbara’s father, in 1977, had a stroke when he and Barbara’s mom were visiting the Royal Gorge down near Canyon City. They were sitting in a restaurant and suddenly his right arm went numb, and his right leg and his right face just dropped. He fell out of his chair. They took him to the hospital in Canyon City. He had a massive stroke. They later moved him to Boulder Community Hospital where he began to go to rehabilitation therapy. He is now in California. To this day, he walks with a limp, cannot use his right hand at all, and many times, the thoughts that are in his mind, though they are clear there, cannot be expressed clearly verbally. It’s a storm that has continued in his life.
Barbara’s mother had rheumatoid arthritis and she got that 30 years ago. She has hip replacements, much pain, deformed hands, and she’s had rheumatoid arthritis for these 30 years, and it’s been a continuing storm. Twenty years ago, Barb’s mother got uterine cancer. Fifteen years ago, she got lymphoma, cancer of the lymph nodes. Five years ago, she got carcinoma, a third form of cancer, but the Lord has seen her through all of those storms.
Everyone in this world experiences storms and that’s true, I’m sure, of all of you. Maybe your storms are physical. Maybe they are financial. Maybe you’re in the midst of a business crisis. Maybe your storms are relational. Maybe they are emotional, and you say, ‘Why must I go through these storms?’ It’s something we all experience in life.
You may have read of that little girl named Charlotte Valente. She was born with a bone disease whereby her bones were very brittle. At the age of two, she had 22 fractures. By the age of five, …in fact when she was two years old, she was already in traction. At the age of six, she had been in and out of the hospital 35 times. By the age of ten she had more than 70 fractures in her body. She went to high school in a wheelchair. She went to college, and she graduated cum laude. She went to law school. She passed the bar exam. She’s a lawyer, but in her life, she’s never weighed more than 50 pounds. Sometimes we say, “Why must anyone go through something like that? Why must anyone experience something like that?’ But Jesus said to us before He left this earth, he said “In the world, you will have tribulation. Be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.”
The first point I want to make this morning is very simple. Life has storms and we all must go through them. The second message, the second teaching that I want to give from this miracle is this: these storms of life are meant to make us walk on water. They are meant to make us take steps of faith. They are meant to make us grow. They are meant to make us mature. In the midst of the storm, Jesus came to the disciples and Peter, in his enthusiasm, said to Jesus “Lord, bid me come on the water” and Jesus said “Come.” In the midst of all of our storms, Jesus says “Come.” He invites us to take steps of faith, and so it was that Peter stepped out in an effort to walk on the water. His motive? We do not know. Some people think that he was trying to show off in front of the other disciples. Some people think that he was merely exercising faith. We really do not know, but this we do know. Jesus was with him, and it was in the moment when he began to doubt that he fell.
Sometimes these storms of life are brought to us by God Himself. Sometimes the storms through which we must journey, the storms through which our faith is meant to grow. Sometimes God brings those storms in an effort to discipline us because we’ve gone off the path and He wants to bring us back.
I remember when I was growing up. My brothers and I were down at a lake in a park. My father was with us, and we were playing with a boat in the lake, and the boat got away from our fingertips and drifted out into the lake. We couldn’t reach it. We were concerned as to how we were to get the boat, and my father came down. He took up a rock and he threw the rock out into the lake just a little beyond the boat, and the ripples began to push the boat back towards us. He took another rock and threw it, and the boat came further back. Eventually, the boat came all the way back to us. In the years that followed, I did that many times when I lost things in a lake or in some body of water, and that’s what God wants to do for us. Sometimes when we’ve gone astray, He brings ripples into our life. He brings little storms into our life, and they’re meant to bring us back as an expression of His loving discipline. He wants us to view discipline in that way. The author of Hebrews said, “Let us with perseverance run the race that is set before us. Looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfector of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of God. Consider Him who endured from sinners such hostilities against Himself that you may not grow weak or fainthearted, for you, in your battle against sin, have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. Have you forgotten the exhortation which addresses you as sons, saying ‘My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor lose courage when you are disciplined by Him or chastised by Him, for the Lord disciplines those whom He loves and He chastises every son whom He receives. It is for discipline that you are to endure. God is treating you like sons, for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline in which all have participated, then you would be illegitimate children and not sons, for we have had earthly fathers who discipline us, and we respected them. Should we not much more be subject to the Father of Spirits and live. Our earthly fathers disciplined us for a short time at their pleasure, but God disciplines us for our good, that we might share His holiness. For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to all who have been trained by it. Therefore, lift up your drooping hands, strengthen your weak knees, make straight paths for your feet, that what is lame may not be put out of joint but may be healed.’ You see, God wants to heal us. He wants to bring us to wholeness and so He disciplines us, and many of the storms and the ripples of life are expressions of that discipline whereby in His love He’s trying to bring us back on the path.
Sometimes the storms of life, however, are not from God. Some storms that are in this world that we must go through are not storms that God has brought. They are simply there because we live in a sinful and fallen world and that sin and that fallen world touches all of us. Sometimes God did not bring a particular storm, but He allows us to go through it because He wants to test us. He wants to strengthen us. He wants to build Us up. Peter says, “Now for a little while, you may suffer various trials so that the testing of your faith, more precious than gold, which though perishable is tested by fire, may redound to praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
God wants to purify us through the storms of life even as gold is purified by fire. The goldsmith, the refiner, puts gold into the crucible, into the smelter’s oven, and there the gold is heated for purification at temperatures more than 1,000 degrees, and as the gold is heated, it melts and begins to wriggle, and as it wriggles, it turns and it churns, and that wriggling brings about purification and a separation of the impure elements in that gold. The impure elements are called “dross,” sometimes they are called “slag.” They are separated from the gold and the goldsmith, the refiner, knows that the gold has become pure when he begins to see his own image in the gold. That’s what Jesus Christ does with us. He brings “wriggling” to our lives. He tests us. He puts us under fire. He allows us to go through storms in order that we might be purified until He can begin to see His image in us.
Many of you, I’m sure, have no desire to go through “wriggling.” You’d just as soon never wriggle at all. You’d like to spend your whole life at the Broadmoor. I know I sometimes feel like that, but God loves us too much for that, so He brings circumstances into our life whereby we are made to grow. We are purified.
On our honeymoon, Barb and I went to Pebble Beach in California on the coast. I’m sure many of you have been there. When you think of Pebble Beach, perhaps you think of the famous golf course that is there, but the beach, of course, was actually named after its pebbles. The waves beat against the stones on the rocky beaches and the waves pound the stones together, grind the stones together. The waves toss the stones into the cliffs. The waves are relentless. They are unabating, but as the days and the weeks and the months and the years and the decades pass, those stones are shaped and formed by the pounding of the waves so that now, tourists come from all over the world, and they collect those beautiful little stones that are perfectly shaped. They are polished and round. They are beautiful. They are sought and they are used for decorations and ornaments.
Near Pebble Beach there is a quiet cove that is sheltered by the cliffs. The waves do not pound there. There is a great calm. There are many rocks in that cove, but they are unsought because they are rough and jagged. They have escaped the 31 pounding of the waves and they are devoid of beauty. No one wants them. God wants us to be sought. He wants us to be desirable. He wants us to be formed and shaped. He wants us to have beauty of character, a beauty that is desirable, and so He allows the waves to pound because He loves us so much.
If anyone ever experienced the resistance of the waves and winds of life, it was the Apostle Paul. I think one of my favorite passages is the passage that he wrote to the Corinthians in the Book of II Corinthians. Paul says “Is anyone a servant of Jesus Christ? I serve Him more though I am speaking like a fool, but I’ve had far greater labors with far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received, at the hands of the Jews, the 40 lashes less one. Three times I’ve been beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I have been shipwrecked. A day and a night I was adrift at sea. On frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from the Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brethren, in toil and hardship through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, and in addition to all of this, I have the daily pressures of my anxieties for all the churches.” There is no doubt that Paul had waves and winds that beat against him as he journeyed through life, but as he committed his life to God as clay in the hand of the Potter, his life was formed and shaped. He wrote to those same Christians in Corinth, and he said “We all, with unveiled faces, beholding the glory of the Lord are being changed from one degree of glory to another. His life was being changed, molded and shaped, and at the close of his life he was able to say “I have fought the good fight. I’ve kept the faith. I’ve finished the race. Henceforth, there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the Righteous judge, will award to me on that day and not only to me, but to all who have loved His appearing.”
The waves of life are meant to make us walk on water. They are meant to make us take steps of faith. They are meant to make us strong.
There’s a little church in Japan. This little church was built from the stones that were used in an effort to martyr Christians in various places throughout the ages. A church built from stones thrown at Christians. You see, God is able to do that. He’s able to build His church from the very things that are thrown at the church, and He’s able to do that with you. He’s able to build your life from the very things that are thrown at you, from the waves and from the winds, and it’s for this reason that James says, “Count it all ley when you experience various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. Let steadfastness have its full effect that you might be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. ”
There’s a third and final message from this miracle and it is this. This miracle tells us that Jesus Christ is in control. He has authority over the storms in life and He has authority over the storms in your life, and while He allows those storms to test you, He will not allow those storms to destroy you. In the midst of the storm, Jesus came to the disciples. Peter tried to walk on water, but he began to sink. Jesus reached forth his arm and he caught him, and he raised him up, and He wants you to know that He will do that for you. He has mastery over the elements and over the sea. He walked on the water because He is Lord of Creation, and He can control the storms of life. When He got into the boat, there was a great calm and the wind, and the waves ceased because He is the Lord of Life.
Shortly after the year 1, 000 B.C., Ring Kanute, who ruled Denmark and ruled all of England and he ruled Norway—He was one of the most powerful rulers of his age in that period of history. He was a brilliant man who established tremendous reforms throughout the English Isles, and he had great power. He was worshipped by some, but he was arrogant, and it is said that Ring Kanute once stood on the beach in the midst of a great storm and he actually rebuked the wind and he commanded the waves to abate, but in humiliation to him, the sea was deaf to his commands and the waves continued to pound the beach. You see, there’s only one king who has ever had authority over the creation. Only one king who has ever had authority over the elements and that King is Jesus Christ who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and He wants you to trust Him in the midst of all the storms of life.
Do you remember that time we are told in the gospels when Jesus got into the boat right by the Sea of Galilee right after He had told some of His parables? He told the parable of the Sower. He got into the boat with the disciples, and they began to go out into the sea and when they were in the middle of the lake, a violent storm arose and water began to fill the boat and Jesus was asleep in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples thought they were going to perish, and the boat was sinking, and they thought they were going to die, and they ran, and they woke Jesus up and they said “Master, do you not care if we perish?”
Have you ever felt like that? Have you ever felt like you were in the midst of a storm, and you were sinking, and God is asleep. Have you ever wondered if He cares whether you perish? You see, the Bible tells us that He does. Jesus rose, He rebuked the wind. He said to the sea “Peace, be still” and there was a great calm. He promises that He will deliver you. In the midst of every circumstance of life, He knows the amount, the degree, the extent of the storm that you’re able to endure. When you can endure no more, He comes to you.
The Golden Gate Bridge was built in 1936 at a cost of $35.5 million. It was only half as expensive as the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, but it is more famous. It’s perhaps the most famous suspension bridge in the world. Shortly after the Golden Gate Bridge was built, a great storm came into San Francisco Bay and that storm pounded against that new bridge, and the storm was so intense, so strong, that the bridge actually bowed 12-1/2 feet in the center. People were concerned and they thought that perhaps there was structural damage and the bridge was not safe, but the designers of the bridge, the architects, they assured the people that the bridge was designed to be able to sway as far as 17 feet before it could break and that the waves and the pounding against the bridge were well within the margin of safety in terms of its flexibility.
God has made us like that. He’s made us with a certain amount of flexibility. When we go through the storms of life, we can bow, and we can flex. There’s a certain flexibility to our lives and God knows the measure beyond which you cannot endure. He knows your breaking point and He will never allow you to go beyond it because Jesus Christ is always there, and He will come to you in your moment of need as when Peter began to sink, and Jesus reached forth His hand and He caught him.
When I was growing up, my parents wanted me to learn to swim. This was true of my brothers too, but it was particularly hard for me because I was afraid of the water. My parents had a swimming pool they had built in the backyard, and it was 40 feet long. I struggled to swim. I learned to dogpaddle a little, but I couldn’t go very far. My father tried everything and finally he offered me $10. If I would swim the length of the pool, he said he would give me $10. I remember that day. I went out there and I struggled to swim the length of the pool. It took me, it seemed like it just took me forever to go the length of that pool, but I finally made it. But it wasn’t as though there was any danger even though I wasn’t a good swimmer, because my father was standing by the side of the pool, and if I had begun to sink, he would have jumped in. There’s no doubt that he would have saved me. And you see, that’s the same confidence that God wants you to have in life. He wants you to know that He is there and if it looks like you’re beginning to sink, He will reach forth and He will save you.
Dr. John McNeil was one of the greatest preachers, one of the greatest ministers in American history but he drew up in Scotland. He used to love to tell the story about how, when he was in Scotland, he lived on his parents’ farm. They were poor and so he went to work in the city as a little boy. It was in the village, and every day when he was through working, he would walk home, through the village, through the rolling hills and he would have to go through a valley, through a canyon before he would reach his parents’ farm. That canyon was always very scary to him because it had steep cliffs, and it was known that robbers and thieves were sometimes in that canyon. One day he had to work late, and it was dark by the time he headed home. He went through the village, and he went over the rolling hills, and he came to the canyon, and he was afraid. As he entered the canyon, he could just hear, he could feel his heart beating. When he came to the center of the canyon in the midst of the darkness, he heard a loud voice, and he just froze. Then he heard the voice again and he recognized it. It was the voice of his father, and his father was saying “Johnny,” calling him by name. His father had come to meet him in the middle of the canyon. John McNeil said when he reached up and put his little hand in his father’s hand, his father’s strong hand, he said it was like he was home already—he felt so safe, and that’s the way the Lord wants us to feel because He wants us to know that He will always come to us in the midst of the storms of life. He will not allow us to perish. That’s why Jesus says “Fear not. I am with you.’ Excuse me, the Bible says “Fear not I am with you. Be not dismayed. I am your sod. I will uphold you and I will strengthen you with My victorious right hand.” Jesus says, “Lo am with you always, even to the close of the age.” He says, “1 will never fail you and I will never forsake you.”
So, we have these three messages from this miracle, and the first message is this. As Christians we do go through storms. The waves and the winds of life beat against us and that is normal, but we have a second message and that is this. Those storms are only meant to make us strong. They are meant to make us walk on water. They are meant to make us take steps of faith. They are meant to purify us as fire purifies gold. The third message is this. Jesus Christ is with us. He will not allow those storms to break us. He will not allow us to perish but He will always come to us in our time of need. He knows the measure of our ability to endure, and He will come in our times of need. Shall we pray?