DEC 15 2019 | Grace on the Galilee S1E6 | Jesus Gets Into a Boat

Sea Change Church · Grace on the Galilee · "Jesus Gets Into a Boat" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · December 15, 2019
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Good morning, church. My name is Rebecca, and I'm a leader at Serve Church, and I'll be reading the scripture today. It's Matthew 14, 22 through 33. Immediately, Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side while he dismissed the crowd. After he had dismissed them, he went up to the mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, and the boat was already a considerable distance from the land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.

Shortly before dawn, Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. It's a ghost, they said, and cried out in fear. But Jesus immediately said to them, Take courage, it is I. Do not be afraid. Lord, if it is you, Peter replied, tell me to come to you on the water. Come, he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water, and came toward Jesus.

But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and again began to sink, cried out, Lord, save me. Immediately, Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. You of little faith, he said, why did you doubt? And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshipped him, saying, truly, you are the Son of God. The word of the Lord. Boom. There we are. Let me just pray. Jesus, I want to thank you, God, for your word, the goodness of your word, as we come to this, probably the most memorable miracle, Lord, that you did on the Sea of Galilee. You walked on the water. Peter walked on the water.

And God, we bless you as you call us to walk on the water as well. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. You'll notice your notes are a little different than normal. We're experimenting with some new types of notes, things that are a little bit more interactive, allows you to kind of work with the notes, add more margin for your own personal notes, and kind of leave some of the excesses of my own tangential, perhaps, rabbit trail thinking off the notes. So it makes things a little bit easier.

You'll see that I've entitled this sermon based on this scripture, Jesus Gets Into a Boat. And the reason I did, because this is a passage probably not really known for Jesus getting into boats. It's a passage for people getting out of boats. But what I've found in this series is I started, sometimes where you start is not where you end. And so when I originally started thinking about the miracle series, I thought, you know, I think we need hope. I love to preach hope. I love to preach expectation. And that was the definition of miracles. Miracles are something that have hope as a part of them that comes from without, from outside of the natural order of things. So I wanted to encourage people with hope. But what I found, and I should have known this because it tends to go with my own personality, is I tend not to be overwhelmed or overly excited about things that are obvious.

I tend to really enjoy the things that are in the margins. And so as I look through these miracles, and I looked at Peter walking on the water, I was, you know, not so amazed by that. But I kept finding as we looked in all these, and Rondi mentioned it as well a couple weeks ago, was that I feel that some of the most amazing life-changing things happened around the miracles, not so much in the actual miracle. And I got excited about the things that happened around it. And so once again, we're going to find ourselves in this passage, looking at the things around a spectacular miracle, the things that most people miss. I've had a term I have thought about for a very long time called common glory.

And I love finding glory in the commonality of life. When I wrote some children's books or some books for parenting, spoke to a lot of moms groups. And there was a lot of moms, stay-at-home moms who had incredible talent. Some stayed at home because they wanted to, some didn't want to. And some felt very locked into cleaning throw up off their sweaters and all these types of things and menial house duties when they knew they had real talent to be out there basically changing the world if you want to use that. And one of the things I tried to challenge them with is how good Jesus was at finding glory in the common, where he calls Peter out into the boat for the first time earlier in Peter's story. He, him, Peter had this interesting thing with boats and he calls him from his nets. Peter's just cleaning nets.

And so often we miss glory in the commonality and the common moments of life. We want to live walking on the water in the storm. This is what Hollywood sells us. This is what marketing sells us. But 95% of life is net cleaning. And so how do we find glory in the commonality of net cleaning? We were just in Israel going from place to place. And I realized that Jesus walked a lot. We would get in the car and go to, in the, in the, um, the van and go two and a half hours, you know, driving at 80 miles an hour. And it would say in the scripture, well, Jesus got up here and he walked over to there not realizing, I mean, it's like a week and a half to walk to where Jesus was going. Jesus was the Messiah.

He was God incarnate in the common moments. And so here we are once again in this passage and hence why this, the, uh, and not to have spoiler alert is more about, I think Jesus getting into boats and wanting to be in your boat, uh, than Peter walking on water. Because in the end, the great moments of our lives aren't as important to us. So these, uh, mountaintop moments don't seem to be as important to us often as the moments when we really needed someone just to get in the boat with us. We really needed someone to come along our side and Jesus wants to come along your side. He wants to get into the boat with you.

He loves climbing mountains, but he also loves just walking with you for a very long time in relationship. Let's look at this. And, uh, if you look in your notes, I believe this is in your notes. This is a story of some of the people who literally, now this is a word that a lot of high school and middle school kids use the word literally. Now it is not, it is not only here, it is in England. It is also in the elementary school, uh, ages in England. Cause my brother's daughter is in elementary school. And I went to her play, her school play when we were there and every kid says literally, literally. And then my daughters say literally and everyone, I don't know if you've seen it, but in an age where essentialism is being put to rest, meaning things have essentials that have to be. Everyone keeps saying literally, I don't know if you've noticed this, like nothing is literally anything anymore, but everyone says, I don't know if you've noticed that I've noticed it. The reason I say it is because this is a story of some of the people who literally, I mean it, followed the commands of Jesus and what happened to them after they did. They didn't take it as a suggestion. They did not. These people in these stories, the one that Rondi spoke about, the one that Harry spoke about all these people in the stories. And, uh, and I listened to them, um, you know, the story of the boy. Now remember this story where they walk in the water is directly after what Rondi was speaking about the feeding of the 5,000. These people actually did what Jesus told them to do. And the miracle happened after the obedience. These are people who literally followed Jesus commands and what happened to them after they did the boy gave his bread away. He gave his fish away. When Jesus asked him, the crowd sat down and got organized into fifties and hundreds and thousands or whatever it is.

They organized because Jesus said, go get organized. And they got organized. And then he said, sit down. The disciples picked up baskets when he told them to pick up baskets. And they went around and, and, uh, got and collected the loaves afterwards. Peter is told in the others to get into the boat. Peter is invited to walk onto the water and all these amazing things that you see that when I'm trying to connect here happen, when people actually did what Jesus told them to do.

Now, if you have no miracles in your life, or you have no great moments, or you're feeling a little bit like your spiritual life is flagging, is falling back, is off the pace a little bit, do you have a disconnect between following Jesus, you know, suggestively when I'm up for it, or literally following what you know, he's telling you to do. Now, does you can say to me, does Jesus isn't telling me, Hey, go to in and out burger today and have the triple, triple, not the double, double, the triple, triple animal style with the chopped chilies, which is what I always have, which is amazing. And he literally tells you, he doesn't speak to us like that anymore.

But what I also say is he did give us a Bible. He gave us a new Testament. And there are things in there that you might already know that God is saying to you, literally, you should, you should be doing this. And he's applauding what you're doing. Keep doing this. Cause not everything Jesus tells you is he stopped doing this. We have to quit making him a moral policeman. He doesn't, he didn't come to be the moral policeman. He came to invite you into a great adventure.

And so Jesus is, is speaking to you and you know it and you wonder why there's a disconnect. And the question is, if you know in your heart that you should stop doing something or keep doing something, are you literally following what you know to be true? Or are you just doing it when you feel like it? And if you wonder if there's a disconnect, this is what I'm talking about. This is the story once again, of some of the people who, some of the people who literally follow Jesus commands and what happened to them after they did. Now in verse 22, in a moment at the beginning of this, you're going to see a Jesus immediately made. There should be a bolded word in your notes made that word made has a Greek meaning to it. We're going to get deeper into it, but you can write down these two words in the notes there that can mean to be compelled.

He compelled them to get into the boat immediately after this amazing time of feeding. And then Jesus disperses the crowd on his own, which is interesting. I mean, you, you would want your boys, your, your, your posse of 12 to help you disperse 20,000 people. I know as a pastor, and some of you are in public work after an event, what it's like when let's say you speak or you're in a play or a drama, or you do something. And the people that come up to you afterwards, imagine the greeting line at the end of this event for Jesus. It's like being in a wedding and he sends them away off to go do something and immediately makes them. He compels them. Now the question is why would Jesus send them into a storm?

Great question. People have always focused on the storm. Spoiler alert. If you go to the end of the story, they end up on their knees with what realization? That Jesus Christ is Lord. Maybe he didn't send them into the storm. The storm was just cobbled into the journey that he was actually intending to take them on. He knew what he was doing. We'll see that in a moment. He knows what he's doing with your life. And in the common glory of your life in the moment right now, he's trying to get you to a place, perhaps where he gets these disciples who literally followed what he told them to do, where they fall on their knees and say, you know what? You've proved it to me. You're God.

And, and the proof in the pudding is following what Jesus says and what, you know, it says to be said, what he says to you. This is a story of faith as an experimental adventure, rich, rich. Let me just, I underlined experimental adventure, adventure. Faith is an adventure. If you have no adventure in your faith, it's probably not faith. It's probably called foregone conclusion. Faith is an experimental adventure. Christ has proved, God has proved in the adventure. It is not, he has not proved upon the sidelines. It is an experimental adventure, rich with risk taking and obedience. And we see this in this story. We see risk taking, we see high highs, we see failures, we see low lows, and it is rich in the life of, of God and the life of faith is rich with, with adventure, with, with obedience, which is the difficult part and also risk taking. Now here's the main point. Peter gets out of the boat. And this is what is so interesting to me. One of the things, we love this story because we love setting off on an adventure. I just saw Tolkien on the plane. I loved it. If you're not into literature and languages and hobbits and the whole deal, don't watch it. But if you are, watch the story of his life. It, uh, put a bow on my entire experience.

And one of the reasons you want to go away is because it helps you remember who you are, are certain parts of who you are. And if you haven't been away by yourself for a while with a loved one, go away and perhaps remember who you are. That's just a little advice. And so when I was there, God was bringing up all these different themes to me. And as I looked, um, at this, uh, what was happening in the story, I realized that people love setting off on a journey. I mentioned Tolkien because obviously the hobbit sets off on a journey and that's how the beginning of the story begins.

We love doing that. We love the idea of just go for it. Remember Nike, just do it. We love that. And so sometimes we love just the idea of bailing where we are to go to the next thing. The grass is always greener. Well, when I was 18 years old, um, mom and I weren't seeing things the same way. It was just interesting. And so three days after I was 18, I moved out and you could look at this and say, what a great act of faith, 18 years old out on your own and doing the whole, what a great act of faith. But actually I was just bailing ship. What is so interesting. And as we look at this passage, what does this have to do with you? If you look at this passage and you get this incredible endorphin hit of, I want to do that. I want to climb mountains. I'm going to bail this thing that I'm in or where I'm called to because I want to do the next adventurous thing. You've missed the point because Peter did not get out of the boat. Peter asked to get out of the boat.

Big difference. Did you ever see that? Have you ever heard that preached before? Yeah. Peter got out of the boat. You get out of the boat. It feels awesome to get out of boats. We love, you know, abandoning ship is easy. I just saw the movie Midway. I saw that. And, uh, one of the things that the Japanese, they really did a great job showing the honor and the courage of the Japanese army as well. And they, the captains, when they lost in battle, they stayed on the ship and went down with the ship. It was really interesting. I think we live in a society that loves to jump ship. And I'll tell you what, I'm really impressed with 11 disciples who are willing to stay in the boat. Somebody needs a man in the boat. And so what I saw in this is, yeah, we love the story, especially if you're American. We love the story of the pioneer. We love the story of the adventurer. And there is a place for that story for you.

There are times in your life where we, doesn't it feel good to have that endorphin, but I got to tell you what, we've got to get better. I think as a church, as a people myself to realize when we need to stay in the boat and if we're going to get out of the boat, we need to ask. I tell you, when I was 18, I didn't ask Jesus to leave the house. I just left the house for a whole bunch of reasons and had a whole bunch of, but about probably the worst 18 months of my life directly after that decision, because Jesus didn't say to me, yeah, come on down to South mission beach with me. No, he said, I just went down there on my own and found a whole bunch of awesome stuff. So there we go. We'll leave it at that.

I want to say the risk of obedient faith. Do you see the difference there? Do you see the difference in this story? See the difference in asking Jesus to do something awesome? We'll talk about that in just a second. The risk of obedient faith unlocks the treasures of heaven, sometimes even the miraculous, sometimes even the miraculous. Faith is made real. And I wrote this, and I don't think it's in your notes. It might be, but I just wanted to say that faith is made real.

What gives faith its substance? Like it says in Hebrews 11, that's your homework for the week. Read Hebrews 11. What gives faith its substance? Faith is made real in the doing, in the valleys, on the mountaintops, in all of your victories, in all of your failures of the adventure that is called your life. Faith is affirmed in obedience. It is affirmed. How do you know faith is real? There's only one way to prove faith, and it is through the experiment of walking in faith. And that's what these disciples saw. Faith is affirmed in obedience, risk, success, failure, rescue, and intimacy. You can write those words down in the margins if you want. Obedience. Faith is affirmed in obedience, in risk, in success, in failure. One of Chris's favorite themes, I don't know if she knows it or not, but it's rescue. You talk a lot about rescue and intimacy. Faith is an adventure. We see on the margins here of the miracles, yes, Peter and Jesus walked on the water.

But like I said a moment ago, sometimes abandoning a ship is the easiest thing to do. Sometimes abandoning ship, abandoning a relationship, abandoning a job, abandoning your principles feels a lot better because the responsibility of staying in a boat doesn't feel as awesome as jumping out on the boat and walking on the water. It doesn't. And there is something to be said for people who are willing to stay in the boat. And we never think about the other 11 disciples.

Here's the thing about the other 11 disciples. They stayed in the boat. They didn't have a walking on water experience, but at the end they came to the same realization. Jesus Christ is Lord. This is the point. In this adventure that is your life, hopefully if you are living a risk-filled, faith-filled adventure with God on a regular basis, you're going to come around corners and be like, whoa, that blew me away. You are God. You will have these moments where you're like, God, you are so good. In that victory, that was one of the best victories of my life. My wife and I, we had a victory, you know, together we had a relational victory. Or perhaps it was a failure. And in the midst of the failure, you got some new context on life. And in that failure, like thank God for that failure. I bet there's a lot of you here that you are so glad for some of your worst failures because it has made you who you are today. And you're happy you're not going down that path anymore.

Failure does a great job of correction. It has, it hopefully, it has a corrective element to it. These different things are what allows faith to come alive. How's your adventure going? How's your adventure going? And once again, back to the beginning, are you literally following what you know God has told you to do or what you know to be as true as you know in the scripture of what it says? Sometimes abandoning a ship is the easiest thing to do. As we come in, we're circling the tower now.

I want to give you two commands out of this passage that are powerful. I want to give you two great questions that are incredibly great questions and two powerful truths in our search to become one of the most practical churches in the world to give you stuff to feed on and use this week. Verse 22, back at the beginning, Jesus was up to something. We know that Jesus immediately does something. Now when Jesus, Jesus doesn't do things immediately. He's not an immediate type of guy, but if you read Mark, there's, there's this immediacy. One of the main words is there. And so I guess he is, but you kind of think about Jesus cruising the Galilean countryside. He's more of a cruiser, right? Like that, if you think about, you don't think about him like frantic, like what are we going to do? You know, they said, you know, just crazy frantic, you know, in line, he's always cruising, but he does something immediately now and he sends the disciples away and Jesus is up to something. Now Jesus was not an accidental tourist in Israel at the time. Uh, maybe you remember the movie with William Hurt. Maybe if you're under the age of 40, you don't remember the movie with William Hurt and Gina Davis called the accidental tourist talks about a man who lost his child, has a breakup with his family because of that loss, and ends up just traveling through Europe together, just kind of stumbling wherever he goes. And he has these adventures, not recommending the movie. Uh, it has a lot to also do with a Mark Twain book that you'd see, maybe have seen called the innocence abroad, which is about his 1867 trip to Israel where he went and he kind of just took this trip. And the idea of an accidental tourist means that you just go somewhere and you, you go enjoy it and let life come to you. We see that Jesus, seems to be a little bit more programmatic than that. I mean, he's not a tour guide, right? He like, you're not going to get an advance, a packing in the mail. You're going to be visiting Istanbul on the 13th, then whisk away to Vienna. No, he doesn't tend to do that, but he's also not an accidental tourist, just kind of going with the whims of the day with whatever happens. He tends to know what he's doing. I say that because if you find yourself after a great mountaintop experience on a rough sea and feeling like God told me to go here, I know he told me to go here, but it's not working out. That is normative to how Jesus does things because he's oftentimes trying to get you to a greater glory. And he uses the circumstances of difficulty to go there. It says that he came to them when right before, do you know the word right? He shows up to them, walks on the water to them right before when dawn. Now they say it is what before the dawn darkest before the dawn. And so maybe you have this, these moments where you've been sent somewhere, but let me assure you, as we'll see in a moment, that Jesus knew exactly what he was planning on doing. Jesus is not an accidental tourist in your life. You might not know where you are. You might not know where you're going.

He knows exactly where you are. He knows exactly where he wants you to get going. And you can probably get there sooner if you start literally following what you know in your heart he told you to do. I'm not telling you what to do, but if you have a conviction, follow it and see how it goes. Verse 22, immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other side. Love that. Go ahead of me. You ever think about Jesus leading like that? Does it in the Old Testament as well with Abraham? Go to that place. I'll show you where it is later. Excuse me? Like, do you ever, it's not, he's not just like bumbling, you know, like, oh, I forgot my planter today. I'll figure out where we'll go later. He's doing this for a reason. Have you ever been in Abraham's shoes?

Have you ever been in the disciples' shoes where God says, hey, you go on ahead. You didn't run out there on your own. You were told to go there. So they went ahead and I had him to the other side while he dismissed the crowds. Now, just a quick insight that came to me that is not part of the narrative of where I'm trying to go in this passage. But what we saw here with Jesus feeding the crowds on the slope, on the green pastures, next to the quiet waters, it reminds me of what? The 23rd Psalm, where he feeds you and makes a plate before your enemies. They will soon be facing their enemies of fear. And so you actually see Jesus making the 23rd Psalm come alive in chapter 14 of Matthew.

It's a great study if you want to read through those two miracles and compare and contrast them. I just wanted to share that with you because it was interesting to me and I thought it was worth adding. But also that calm, just because he leads you besides quiet waters doesn't mean that the waters always stay calm. Waters have a weird thing. And this is what was really strange. I don't know if you've seen, like, let's say Mission Bay. The Sea of Galilee is like probably twice, I don't know, maybe three times the size of all of Mission Bay. Like it's not big. It's not you. You could swim across, I have a friend who swam across it. We swam in the Galilee when we were there. It is a very small body of water. It is, I know it's twice the size of Big Bear Lake, which isn't huge. It says that the storm scared, it properly scared, like, like professional fishermen. Like, can you imagine being on Mission Bay not far from here? I can imagine being out in the ocean. Of course, you can just get terrified, right? A hundred, you know, 10 feet offshore. But in Mission Bay, like twice the size of Mission Bay, this is the kind of storm that gets wept up. And I just wanted to give you, that they get swept up in.

And sometimes, when I think this is interesting to me, you put yourself in a place that is most known and feels safest to you. And God still uses that place to shape you. And you ask yourself, how could this happen in this place? I've always been here. I know this place. How could this be happening to me in this place? Jesus knows what he's doing. He knows why he sent you. And he knows how he can use any place and any time to change you and shape you into the person he wants you to be. Like these disciples, where they get on their knees, and at the end, they say that you are God. Coming in for a landing, like I said, we're circling the tower. We're at 38,000 feet, moving down. I was just on a plane, can you tell? Please, everyone find their seatbelts. While we dismiss the crowd, Jesus made him go ahead of him. Now, how do we know that Jesus knows what he's doing when he sends you somewhere? Well, we see in John 6, 5, when it talked about the same chapter. So remember, Rondi said, all the story that she told of the feeding of the 5,000 was in all four gospels. It's one of the few stories, I think, she might have said the only story, but one of the few stories that is in all four gospels. And so in, not in the Matthew account here, but in the John account, it says something that it didn't say in this Matthew that shows that Jesus is not an accidental tourist. And he's, once again, he's not one in your life.

He knows what he's doing. It says that Jesus asked Philip, here's a great question, where shall we buy bread? And he asked him only this to test him, not to tempt him, for he already, what, had in mind what he was going to do. God has in mind what he wants to do in your life, and he wants to lead you to that. So we see that this is a, that Jesus here is knowing where he's sending people. We find two great questions in this passage, like I said. The first is, Peter says a great question to Jesus.

Ask me to come out onto the water. Have you ever realized that? Peter just didn't get out of the boat. He actually asked Jesus a really big question. Now, it is different than we sometimes pray, God do this for me. God do this for me. Do you see the difference when you ask God to partner with him in something? Now, he's not making a deal with God, but he said, basically, you could re-translate this to say, Jesus, I really want to be with you out on the water. I want to be out there running and walking on the water with you. Would you call me out so I can do that with you? That is one way to say it.

How different would our prayers be? How different would our asking be if we started asking God along those lines? And I want to say, when was the last ask that had some consequence for you? Right? Because all of our ask, we're really good at asking God. I wrote a whole book on asking God. It's called Praying for Your Elephant. It's awesome. It's about asking God stuff, just for stuff. Obviously, he has a few sucker punches in there as well to balance that out. But do you see that there was some consequence? There was a risk. It was risk. It was a risk ask.

When Joe Brandy, who was here, talked to God and asked to be, you know, to work with orphans in Mexico and to start an orphanage, you think there's no risk in that? There's a massive amount of risk. You talk to Rondy or any of our other missionaries, there tends to be, they are asking to go do things with a risk. Are the only things you ask for riskless to yourself? Or do you ask something that gives you a little skin in the game? Why do even banks ask for 20% down on a house now? Because they don't want to repeat 2008 where you just walk. They want you to have skin in the game. Peter asked a great question. Let me challenge you this week. Ask better questions. Ask God a better question. Remember, as I challenged myself, I got ready to ask God a few things yesterday. I thought, I'm not ready to ask that yet. If you get to a place where you have pause in a moment and you think, I'm going to ask God, no, I'm not going to ask him for that. That's a really awesome place to be. It shows you're on that line of risk where you say, God, ask me to come into full-time ministry. Ask me to give away this. Ask me to that. If you have a moment where there's a pause, you are in incredibly rich spiritual area and territory and geography. Next thing is Jesus asks this second great question in this passage.

Why did you doubt? Now, we can look at that and say, you loser. Really? You're doubting? Like, I'm out here on the water with you. There you are. I'm here. Why did you doubt? Actually, have you ever wondered why you doubt beyond like just the fear of it? Well, you have issues and you're doubting and you're worried and you're fearful. Do you ever ask yourself, go deeper than the surface level feeling? Because feelings tend to be like a beta blocker for getting to the truth.

The feelings will mask themselves and say, be afraid, be afraid, be afraid. But it wants you, I don't know if it wants you to, but if you never ask questions about why the fear is there, the fear will continue to come back up until you deal with the root issue. This is just basic counseling, right? And so Jesus asked him, why do you doubt? It's a great question. Do you know why you doubt? If you're a doubter or if you have fear or if you're a person who runs from things on a regular basis or if you're a person who gets out of the boat way too much without asking, like why did you do what you do? This is a great question for us as believers to know who we are and to know why we do things. That is how progress is made. And so Jesus doesn't ask a question, I think, to shame him. He asked a question and says, do you know, why are you doing what you're doing? Ask yourself these questions. Why do I do this? Why do I continue to do that? And know the reason why and get to the truth.

And the truth, Jesus says, will set you free. Two powerful truths and then we are done. The first, only faith proves God. You can't prove God. That's the crazy thing about God. You think he would give you a definitive proof. He would show you something that say, if you put this A plus B plus C, you will know and have certainty that I am God. You will have certainty and you will know. And I was thinking about it yesterday. Why didn't he do that? The only way to know that God exists is to be God.

Because if you are in, if you are finite, there is something beyond your knowledge. The only way to fully prove God is actually to be God. This is something that Descartes said about himself. I exist because I think, I think, therefore I am. The only way that God can be proved is to actually be God. Because if you are finite in any way, there will always be something that you don't know that has to be proven. And we will never know at all. I hope that that makes sense. And so how is faith proved?

The only way that God is proved is by faith. Because when you step out in faith, you have a moment where you go, this is real. This is real. Until it fades. Because you're finite. And it'll fade until the next time you don't know something again. You know how often that happens? About 642 times a day for me. Until the next time. But if you were in that rich adventure of faith, this is how faith becomes, as it says in Hebrews 11, a substance. Faith becomes alive because you were in the middle of doing it.

And you come around the corner of a victory. Or you come around the corner of a success. Or you come around the corner of a huge failure. And you say, you are God. You've proved yourself to me again. And in that moment, faith becomes a substance. And it becomes real. And it is the only thing that can save you. Because you will never be real enough to know God as he knows himself. Because we are finite. And so through Jesus, we are saved by faith. That's the best way that I can say it. Only faith proves God.

Verse 33, then those who were in the boat worshipped him, saying, truly you are the son of God. As a believer, let me challenge you. If you have not had a moment, in a very long time, where you came around the corner, and you said, wow, I worship you. You are truly God. You have proved yourself to me once again. If you have not had that moment in a long time, let me inspire you, if I can, to rethink the journey of obedient, rich, risk-taking faith that you might step back into it. Because he wants faith to be proved on a regular basis, so that you might know him better. And the final thing. And I said this earlier, spoiler alert, Jesus got into the boat. This is the most powerful part of the story for me.

Of everything I said, if you were Jesus, would you want to be in the boat? It's cramped. I saw one of those boats. They actually found one from Jesus. We went, it's in a museum. It's small. It's like the size of this pew right here. Even smaller. 11 dudes, 12 dudes in it. And you're on the water. How cool would that be? Imagine if you could do that. There's a storm going on. So Jesus just isn't walking on, like, whenever you see him walking on the calm water out there, that's not what's happening.

There was such a violent storm. Professional fishermen were terrified. It was like that crab show from Alaska, you know. And Jesus is like walking up and down. How cool would that be? Imagine him sliding and surfing it. He's just off the top. I mean, just this amazing thing. Would you want to get into a boat with a bunch of stinky fishermen? I don't even like the smell of, like, fish at the, I don't even eat fish. Like, I just don't like them, you know.

And there's this whole reason, sorry to besmirch fish for all you pescatarians. Yeah, right, sorry about that. Jesus, I wouldn't have wanted to get in the boat. I would say, you know what, meet me on the other side. You know what, you messed up again. Why do you have such a little faith? I'm going to tap. You guys, here, I'll calm the water for you. Fine. Fair enough. See you on the other side. He didn't do that. He gets into the boat.

He hangs out with him and goes the rest of the way. I never would have gotten into the boat. You know what, Jesus has just proven he wants, he loves you. The boat that you dwell in is not too dirty, is not too foul, is not too crowded, does not have enough adventure for his life. Jesus wants to be in your boat, even after one of your greatest failures, because he wants you to know who he is, because he didn't die on the cross to wow you with walking on the water.

He died on the cross that you might know him and that he might become real to you. This is the story of faith. And if you want faith today, you can say, Jesus, whatever that guy is saying, I feel it in my heart, and I want to follow you. And you start following Jesus and make a decision for that today. Let's stand. Let's bow our heads if we would. If you have never made a decision, I'm going to have two questions. One, if you've never made a decision, follow Jesus.

And today you're like, dude, my life's not working. I want to do that. Whatever you said, I want to do that. I want to follow Jesus. Give me a chance to raise your hand. Heads will be bowed, eyes closed. And then the second is for you who are like, I haven't had a realization of Jesus in a very long time. I need to switch it up. Does anybody here just bow our heads and close our eyes? It makes it easier for people. For the first time ever, or in a very long time, to recommit your life to Jesus and say, I want to follow Jesus.

Does any of you, raise your hand. Just say, boom, that's me. Yeah, there in the, yeah, I see you. Yeah, I see you. Yeah, yes. Yeah, I see you. Yeah. Anyone else? Yeah. So for the three of you who made that decision, you say, Jesus, I want to follow you. I just, I want to stay in the boat. I want to get out of the boat. Whatever you tell me, I just, whatever is working is not, it hasn't been working. And I want to follow you.

And I believe you died on the cross and you love me. Explain it to me now. If you made that decision today, you go to the back and Sean will be at the table outside. We want to give you a Bible. We want to get you in discipleship. We want to get you baptized. We want to get you on this path of faith. Keep coming back. Talk to Sean. He'll be at the back table. If there's anybody else here who says, hey, I haven't had a realization of Jesus in a very long time.

And I want it. You make a decision. Just raise your hand. Just say, that's me. I want it. I want more. If you want more, raise your hand. Anybody else here? Yeah. Yeah. I want more. Yeah. Yeah. You want more. More risk-taking. More obedience. Something with a little skin in the game. Yeah. Yes. Yes. More skin in the game. More faith. Yeah. You. Yeah. More and more hands going up. Yeah. Yeah. So Lord Jesus, I'm going to bless you.

If we can all just extend our hands if you want. Whatever posture works for you. But I want to bless you. In the name of Jesus, I bless you with the power of this passage. The power of the word of God. The power of the Holy Spirit. To know him deeply. A God who wants to be in your boat. A God who loves you. A God who cares for you. A God who sends you out into the adventure. And says, go ahead. I'll be right there. And then he sits with you.

And he rests upon you. May the spirit of God rest upon you. May your faith become real and alive. And may you come around a corner this week. And say, wow, you are God. You are the baby in a manger. You are the God of the universe. And I bless you. And I love you. And I want to know you more. And I send you out into here. Into an adventure of faith. Whatever life has. We meet it. No giant too big. No valley too low. No mountain too high.

No song too rich. With your singing of love over us, God. So we bless you now. And I send you out in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.