Welcome, and grace and peace to you. You are listening to a sermon from our Sunday services at Grace and Peace Presbyterian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We are a young church with an ancient message. We exist because of God's transforming grace, and we exist to see God's grace transform everything in Midtown Tulsa and beyond. We believe that we are much more sinful and broken than we ever imagined, but in Jesus Christ we are much more loved and accepted than we ever dared to hope. This message transforms us and the world around us, and we are praying that God's grace might transform you as well. Let's listen in as we hear from the Word. Ok, Matthew 14, 22-33. Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone. But the boat, by the time this was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, from the wind, was against it. And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified and said, It is a ghost! And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, Take heart! In his eye do not be afraid. And Peter answered him, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water. He said, Come. So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid. And beginning to sing, he cried out, Lord, save me! Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, O you of little faith, why did you doubt? And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased, and those in the boat worshipped him, saying, Truly, you are the Son of God. This is the word of the Lord. Thank you, Abby, and thank you all for coming this morning to be with us. My name is Shane, and I'm your pastor. It is my privilege to be with you this morning and be able to share God's word with you. If you're a guest and you're visiting, thank you so much for coming this morning. I don't always wear a tie, but I did today. That's not because it's a special occasion. It's because Fi and I have a bad habit of matching. And I knew if I wore a tie, Fi and I would not match this morning. Do you even own a tie feed? No, you don't. Two? Okay, two. If you haven't been with us, we're in a study of the book of Matthew called The King and His Kingdom. We're looking at the life of Jesus and the people of Jesus. And we're in a series right now where there are several interactions with Jesus and we see how people respond to Jesus in different ways. And so this morning we're looking at Matthew 14, 22-33 where Peter walks on water and I've titled this, Uncomfortable Faith. It's college basketball season. There's lots of college sports going on. And Facebook knows that I'm a degenerative sports fan. So now all of the reels that it suggests for me are all sports all the time. And one of the ones that came up was a clip of John Calipari. He is the basketball coach for the Arkansas Razorbacks right now. And all the Hawks fans say, we did it! Exactly. But he used to be the head coach for Kentucky. the Kentucky Wildcats, and he kind of made his reputation by taking young and talented players and quickly turning them into NBA superstars. And one time he was asked how he did that. And he said, what my job is to do is my job is to make them comfortable being uncomfortable. They have all been great stars, they've all led their teams, they've all played at this level, but now they have got to get to this level. And to get to this level, they are going to be uncomfortable. And so it is my job to make them uncomfortable so that they will become comfortable being uncomfortable. As we look at this passage this morning, I think we see that Coach Calipari took a lesson from Jesus' playbook. Because as we're gonna see in this passage, Jesus takes his disciples into a very uncomfortable place. There's two uncomfortable things that happen here. The first is that Jesus sends them out on the sea into a windstorm. Now, in the Sea of Galilee, the part where they're probably at is probably about four to five miles wide. Jesus has just got done preaching, not preaching, preaching a sermon about his body and his blood and feeding 4,000 people. And he's tired and needs time away from his father. And the people want to make him king. And so what he does is he puts the disciples on a boat and he sends them out into the sea. And then he takes the corral and he dismisses them. And then he goes up in the hill to pray. And the disciples begin rowing their boat on the sea. And they row all night long. It says that it was the fourth watch of the night, which was probably 3 to 6 a.m. So they've been rowing for hours and hours and hours and they can't get across this storm because of the wind. They're in a very uncomfortable situation and Jesus has intentionally put them in that uncomfortable situation. The second uncomfortable situation is that Jesus commands Peter to walk on water. Now, I don't know if you've tried to walk on water lately, but that doesn't work. When I was a kid, we used to have diving competitions at the pool, and one of my standard tricks was to try to run as fast as I could across the water, and I never made it, because it's impossible. Jesus calls Peter to do something that's impossible. Both of these situations required the disciples to exercise faith and obedience in Jesus. It required them to become comfortable being uncomfortable. Jesus may not send us out into the sea, and he may not tell us to walk on water, but Jesus does call us to go into uncomfortable situations when he says, take up your cross and follow me. I once read an article that said, it was titled this, Nation just wants to be happy, safe, rich, comfortable, and entertained at all times. And I thought, that's pretty spot on. And it leads off with, in a new report released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center, Americans indicated that when it comes to what they expect from their country, all they really want is to be safe, happy, rich, comfortable, and entertained at absolutely all times. In addition, the U.S. populace reportedly wondered whether it would be too much to ask to always be healthy, fulfilled, successful, safe, loved, relaxed, inspired, motivated, worry-free, and content every second of their lives from birth until death, given that this is America after all. The title of that newspaper was The Onion. And I thought, you know, that's pretty spot on, isn't it? In our heart of hearts, we idolize comfort and safety. And often, comfort and safety are in direct conflict with what Jesus calls us to be. And our comfort and safety idols are things we pass on to our kids. Fee sent me an article this week. that encouraged parents to treat childhood anxiety with some independence. And the article said, and this is actually a serious article, by the way, kids need lots of practice with what I call the four D's. Discomfort, distress, disappointment, and mild danger. When parents step in to save children from the four Ds, they inadvertently thwart children's opportunities to successfully navigate those integral parts of their life. I think you could say the same thing for us, that we all need a little bit discomfort, distress, disappointment, and mild danger to learn to fully rely on Jesus. This morning, as we look at this passage, what I want you to see is that when we fix our eyes on Jesus, we can become comfortable with being uncomfortable for our faith. That when Jesus calls us to go out into the storm, When we fix our eyes on Him, we may be uncomfortable, but we can find comfort in Him. When Jesus commands us to do that which we know that we cannot do, we can find comfort by fixing our eyes on Him. There's three things we see from this passage that helps us become comfortable being uncomfortable. That's the control of Jesus, the commands of Jesus, and the compassion of Jesus. First, we become comfortable being uncomfortable. by looking at the control of Jesus. Whenever Jesus walks out on the sea and he sees the disciples, they say, it is a ghost, and they cry out in fear. But Jesus says, take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid. And as Phi already mentioned, in this passage, Jesus uses a very interesting phrase in the Greek that connects back to the Old Testament. He says, ego, a, me, which simply means I am. He says, take heart, I am, don't be afraid. What is he doing by saying I am? He is identifying himself with the God of the Old Testament that these disciples would have known and would have heard about and would have been raised to trust. He is identifying himself as the God who rescued the Israelites from Egypt. When the Israelites were in Egypt and they were enslaved and in bondage, God went to Moses to be their deliverer. And he said, Moses, you are going to deliver my people out of Egypt. And he said, that sounds great, but whenever I do that, who should I tell them that you are? And he says, tell them I am. He's pointing himself back to the promises he made to Abraham, saying, I am your God, and you are my people, and you will dwell amongst the people who will enslave you, but I will deliver you. And that's what he did. The great I Am delivered the Israelites out of slavery and Egypt. As he already alluded to, he points it by saying, I am. He is saying, I am the God who will deliver you from exile. Israel went back, they didn't follow God with all their heart, soul, strength, and mind, and they got exiled into Babylon, and he came to them, and he said, fear not, for I am with you. I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine. Though you walk through the waters, they will not sweep over you. He's also identifying himself as the God who created everything, the seas and everything in them. Job 9, 8 says, who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the sea. By Jesus walking on the water, he's saying, I am the God who can trample the seas. In the midst of their fear, with the wind and the waves crashing all around them, Jesus comes and says, I am the Lord of the universe. I am God. And guess what? I am in control. And when Jesus sends you into a storm, you are gonna have to ask yourself, who do I really believe that Jesus is? What is his identity? Who is he? C.S. Lewis famously tells us there's only three proper responses to this question that prove it is Jesus. He's either a liar, the greatest liar that ever lived, that told a lie so big that we've all been believing it. or he's a lunatic. He is absolutely crazy to say that he is God and none of us should believe him. None of us should follow his teachings. None of us should think that he's a good person or a good teacher. He's either a liar or he's a lunatic or he is exactly who he says he is. He is the Lord of creation and he is in control. And so I ask, Into what storm has Jesus called you? What wind and waves are crash-landing your boat? It is the storm of joblessness? That you have lost your job? That you are unemployed or you are underemployed? Is the storm of loneliness and singleness that you have been wanting to be held in the arms of someone who loves you for years upon years, and yet you still find yourself alone? Is it the storm of school, and you've just been in school for years, and you've taken class after class, but you still cannot see God's plan for your life? Is it the storm of a hard marriage? that you and your spouse have tried to love each other well at times, and at other times, you haven't loved each other at all, and you hear the wind and the waves crashing during every fight. What storm do you find yourself in? And what do you believe about Jesus when you're in a mess? This passage tells us that Jesus is in control. No matter what happens, or what you're going through, or what you're feeling, that he's in control. And it's that reality that can give you comfort in the midst of that trial. I had a friend several years ago who was in sales, and he spent all year working on the deal. Hours and hours and hours working on this deal, putting his whole heart and soul into this deal, thinking that this deal was going to get done. And on December 31st, as the clock kept ticking, kept waiting and waiting for that purchase order to come in. And he just kept thinking that purchase order is going to come in. He's calling people and he's emailing people and they're like, yeah, the purchase order is going to come in. It's been filed. It's got to get signed. And once it gets signed, the deal will go through. Well, the clock struck midnight. It hit January 1st. The purchase order never went through. He later found out the secretary had put the purchase order in the wrong stack of files on the person that's supposed to sign his desk, and it never got signed. What did he tell himself in that moment to give him comfort? He said, God is sovereign over purchase orders. God is sovereign over purchase orders. He said, Shane, I have to believe that God is sovereign over purchase orders. Whatever trial you're going through, God is in control. He is sovereign over that. And for whatever reason, whatever purpose he has, he is wanting to break into your hearts. to comfort you. So the disciples have hard hearts. There's other accounts of this story in the gospel of Mark. He has this account, and it really focuses on the hearts of the disciples, and it says the hearts of the disciples were hard. And what Jesus is doing is, is he's sending them out in the storm so that he can take an ice pick and come and break up their hard hearts so that they can receive his love and his grace and his mercy, and that is what God is doing in the midst of your storm. and you can trust me. Fix your eyes on the one who's in control. That's the first thing you can see. Second thing you can see is we can find comfort in the commands of Jesus. So Peter, I love Peter, I'm totally Peter by the way, right? He's like, okay Lord, if it's really you, command me to come out and walk on the water. I think he's kind of calling Jesus' bluff a little bit here, right? Like, is this really Jesus? I don't know. Let's find out. I know if it's really Jesus, he's gonna command me to do something. Because commands are a big part in the book of Matthew. It really highlights Jesus' commands. It's a way of showing Jesus' authority over everything. So Peter says, all right, Jesus, command me to come, and I'll come. And Jesus calls his bluff, and says, okay, come. What happens? Peter actually comes and he actually walks on the water. Peter shows his faith. He knows that Jesus is the king and when the king commands you come and so he comes and Jesus empowers him to leave the comfort and safety of the boat for the uncomfortable wind and waves of the water. And by faith in Jesus, Peter walks on the water. There's actually a faint allusion here to another story in the Old Testament. In 2 Kings 6, 1 through 7, we read about Elijah making an axe head float on the water. Well, Jesus is showing that he's the true and greater Elijah. He is the great prophet that can not only make axe heads float on water, he can make people float on water. He's not just a good teacher or a powerful prophet, but He is the Son of God who can do whatever He pleases. Now, what's the application here? The application is not that if we have enough faith in Jesus, we can walk on water too. That's not the application. The Holy Spirit does not fill you to walk on water. The Holy Spirit fills you to walk in the Spirit. On Pentecost, Peter told the first Christians that heard the sermon from him and the other disciples, and he said, repent and believe the Lord Jesus, and your sins will be forgiven, and you will be filled with the Holy Spirit. Well, Galatians 5 talks about what it means to be filled by the Spirit. And he says, but I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Now the works of the flesh are evident, sexual morality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgeries, and the things like these. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against these things, there is no law. If you have put your faith in Jesus, that God has filled you with his spirit so that you can become more and more dead to the sinful, destructive, shameful, guilty works that we do in our flesh, and more alive to the joy, the love, the passion, the fruit of the spirit that's at work in your life. And it enables you to actually walk in the commandment of Jesus. So that you can experience that. When I was campus minister, I had a freshman student who, her freshman year, she kind of, she had one foot in both worlds. She had one foot in the RUF world where on Wednesday nights she would come to RUF and she would sing the songs and hear the sermon and hang out with all her RUF students and do the RUF thing, right? And then she had another foot in her sorority where she would party. where she'd become a totally different person. She had one foot in each world. And her freshman year, she tried to keep one foot in each world. She tried to be a hearer of the word in RUF, but not a doer of the word outside of RUF. And that's how she lived her life. And she came back her sophomore year, and she said, Shane, I've changed. I don't, this is what's happened. I've had one foot in each world, and all I felt was shame and guilt and fear and anxiety. And she said, I'm not gonna do that anymore. I'm going to follow Jesus faithfully in either place. And that means that I'm going to have some uncomfortable conversations with my friends. That means that I'm going to be uncomfortable at parties. That means that I'm going to be uncomfortable whenever people ask me to do things that I don't want to do. And so that's what she began to do. Her sophomore year, she began to pursue Jesus and follow Jesus in all areas of her life. And I asked her how things had changed after that. And she says, I feel more joy, more freedom, more love, more relationships with people than I've ever been before. as the Holy Spirit was empowering her to find comfort in the commands of Jesus. The commands of Jesus are not burdensome. They are loving and they are good. Jesus told the disciples, come to me, all you who are weary and laden, and I will give you rest. My yoke is easy, my burden is light. And the image that Jesus is giving there, a yoke, is something that an ox wore on the back to do work. Well, the teaching of a master was described as a yoke on the disciples. And Jesus is saying, my yoke is easy, my burden is light. And what that actually means is that there was kind of a buoyancy to his yoke. It was almost like a flotation device, that when you follow the ways of Jesus, life becomes lighter, becomes better, becomes good. Not by going your own way, but by going His way. So I ask you this, where is Jesus commanding you to follow? What are the commands of Jesus that you hear him speaking in your life saying, this is how I want you to love him. This is how I want you to love God. That is where you're going to find comfort, even though it may be uncomfortable. It might be sitting next to someone of all names that you don't want to sit next to. It might be, um, talking to your family patiently and kindly about religion and politics. It might be treating your ex-boyfriend or girlfriend with kindness. It might be trying not to win an argument with your spouse. It might be co-parenting with your ex-spouse whenever you're exhausted. It might be closing your laptop and turning off your cell phone so that you can actually embrace Sabbath rest. In all of those commands, Jesus is helping you fix your eyes on him so that you might experience not less of his love, but more of his love. All those commands are a way to fix your eyes on Jesus. It's funny, theologians have struggled for years with the impossible commands of Jesus. Right? And some theologians said, well, if God commands us to do something that we can't do, if God commands us to do something that we must be able to do. In St. Augustine, one of the great theologians said this. He said, now, this is how it goes. When you come to Jesus, you say, command what you will, but give what you command. That is the heart of a believer. That is response. It's when he's fixing their eyes on Jesus. You look at whatever situation it is, and you say, okay, Jesus, command what you will, but give what you command. With the power of the Holy Spirit, help me to trust you and trust your ways. You find comfort in the commands of Jesus. You find comfort in the control of Jesus. And lastly, you find comfort in the compassion of Jesus. Of course, the wind and the waves get going, and the text tells us that period, what? That he took his eyes off Jesus, and he looked at the wind and the waves, and when he looked at the wind and the waves, he sank, and he said, Lord, save me. And what did Jesus do? Did Jesus take his hand, like a mean big brother, and push him down and say, ha, you should have believed in me. You should have had better faith. He reached out. with a kind and compassionate aim and gratitude. Oh, you will say, they took him back to the boat. I don't know how he got to the back of the boat. They don't tell us that, I would love to know. I would love to know if they walked back to the boat or they swam back to the boat. Don't know, it doesn't matter, but either way, Jesus got him back to the boat. And we're all a little bit like Peter in Christian life, aren't we? that we have faith, we want to follow Jesus, we want to trust Him, we want to fix our eyes on Him on the one hand, but then when we get fired, we look at the wind in the waves and we doubt. Or we can do a fight with our spouse again and we doubt. Or we look at our own needs and our own desires and we just want what we want and so we do what we want to do and we begin to sin. We love our siblings, we love our brothers and sisters, and we want to care for them, but we just love our toys a little bit more. And we doubt. And we sin. Like Peter, what do we do? Like Peter, we say, we cry out, save me. There was a man once, a father who asked Jesus to heal his son. And he said, you teacher, if you can heal my son, would you come and heal me? He said, yes. And the man says, I believe, help my only. That's the prayer of belief. I believe, help my only. The apostle Paul said, the good that I want to do, I do not do. It's that which I want to do that I keep on doing. Who will deliver me to this body of death? Thanks be to God for a Lord Jesus Christ. We believe, help our only. We trust, but we doubt. We want to be good that people's right there beside us and the whole time we fix our eyes on the kind, compassionate hand of Jesus who saves us, who rescues us. One time, my family, we like to vacation in Salida, Colorado. And the Arkansas River goes through Salida. And it's pretty narrow and pretty tame. So people kayak down it. They raft down it. They do the paddle surfing that I can't do down there all the time, whatever. So we were down there as a family years ago on vacation. And they have rafting rides you can do down there. I said, Tucker, come on. Let's raft on this thing. Oh, Dad, that looks pretty rough. Come on, Tucker. We can do it. They got life jackets. Like, other people are doing it. Let's go. I don't know, Dad. Come on. Let's go. OK. All right. So we go. We get the life jackets. We get in the tube. We start going down the river. And there's one spot in the river where there's rapids. And as we're coming up to it, I notice there's a couple of teenage boys. Nothing against teenage boys. I like teenage boys, but they're teenage boys. And you know, they're not the most aware of what's going on around them. And so they're not saying that me and my young son are coming down the rap. They're just focusing on being the coolest guy who can impress the girls by staying in the rap as long as. And so as they're coming up, they're right where we're supposed to go and they won't move. And I can see what's happening. So I just calmly, coolly, try to be calm and go paint on the inside, take my hand and grab Trump's life jacket. And as we get to the spot, they won't move. And so we try to swerve to get around in. And when we swerve, we tip over. And of course, Tucker's flailing and he's, ah, dad, dad, dad. And he grabs onto me and he holds onto me. And I, I grabbed him like this and I swam, you know, I paddled one hand and I swam to the side and we get to the side and kind of get calmed down. He says, dad, I thought I was going to drown. I thought I was going to go down the river. I had to grab onto you. I said, son, you didn't know it. But I had a home for you the entire time. You weren't going anywhere. When the wind and the waves are crashing your boat, remember that you have a kind and compassionate Savior that has your hand. And in Him, you are not going anywhere. He is the author and the lived a life that you couldn't live, and died the death that you should have died. And on the cross, all the wind and all the waves of God's wrath was poured out on Him, so that when we get in the trials, we do not have to doubt whether God loves us. We can look at the cross and see that God loved us so much that He gave His only Son for us. And if He gave His only Son for us, no matter what happens in the wind and the waves, I know that my eternal destiny is secured in Jesus. He is my faithful Savior. And right now he is sitting in heaven as our guarantee, our deposit, that the wind and the waves cannot overcome us, that though the waters be high and heavy, we have a higher and stronger savior. His name is Jesus. And his spirit lays with us. And it empowers us to fix our eyes on him. And that gives us the comfort we need to be uncomfortable. We look at Him, His control, His commands, and His compassion. Let's pray to God we can help us do that together. Please pray with me. Father in heaven, we thank you so much for Jesus, for our faithful Savior. We thank you that you love us too much to let us worship comfort and security. You want us to worship you and you alone. You love us too much to let us just be comfortable. You are constantly sending us into the uncomfortable place where we have to fix our eyes on you. So we pray, God, that you would give what you command. You command us to fix our eyes on the author of Reflective or Fake, and so we pray that you would give us the strength to do that. And we thank you that even when our faith fails, we know that we have a faithful Savior whose hand is always on us. We pray by the Holy Spirit that you would help us to trust you. We pray that you would help us to walk more and more in your commands, to grow more and more dead to sin and alive to righteousness. And we pray, Lord, that you would help us see that you are kind and good in everything We pray this in the great name of Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Thanks for listening in today to the sermon. If you'd like to find out more about our church, Grace and Peace, please visit our website at graceandpeacetulsa.com or find us on Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube. We long to see God's grace change everything so that the glory of God covers the earth as the waters cover the sea. We pray that the Lord bless you and keep you, that He make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.