Why doubt? (CC)
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Sermon Text: Matthew 14:22-33
Sermon Text: Matthew 14:22-33
Let us rise for the reading of this morning's Sermon Text
recorded for us in Matthew's Gospel where we read from
Chapter 14 beginning with Verse 22:
IMMEDIATELY
JESUS MADE THE DISCIPLES GET INTO THE BOAT AND
GO ON AHEAD OF HIM TO THE OTHER SIDE,
WHILE HE DISMISSED THE CROWD. AFTER HE HAD DISMISSED THEM,
HE WENT UP INTO THE HILLS [ON A MOUNTAINSIDE] BY HIMSELF
TO PRAY. WHEN EVENING CAME,
HE WAS THERE ALONE, BUT THE BOAT
WAS ALREADY A CONSIDERABLE DISTANCE FROM LAND,
BUFFETED BY THE WAVES BECAUSE THE WIND WAS AGAINST IT.
DURING THE FOURTH WATCH OF THE NIGHT 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. DON'T BE AFRAID."
"LORD, IF IT'S YOU," PETER REPLIED, "TELL ME TO
COME TO YOU ON THE WATER."
"COME," HE SAID. THEN PETER GOT DOWN
OUT OF THE BOAT AND WALKED ON THE WATER AND CAME TOWARD
[TO] JESUS. BUT WHEN HE SAW THE WIND, HE WAS AFRAID
AND, BEGINNING 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 WORSHIPED HIM,
SAYING, "TRULY YOU ARE THE SON OF GOD."
This is the Word of our Lord. Let us pray:
Glorious and gracious God,
may the words of my mouth and the meditation
of each of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight,
our only source of hope and comfort.
Amen.
[Sermon Text taken from the HOLY BIBLE:
NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, 1973, 1978, 1984,
used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers]
Dear Followers
of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ:
The church, well the first church,
that my family went to worship in,
was a rural congregation.
A very small building. Probably fit maybe
50 people.
And I was eight or younger.
What I remember about that building,
was the altar. Some of the members
in my family history, had made it.
It was painted white and it had all kinds of little ornate
cut-work pieces on it, and in the middle of the altar,
there was this painting.
A painting that depicted
what was in our Sermon Text for this morning.
A painting of Peter drowning
in the water, next to a boat
with Jesus standing next to him
doing this ...
That painting, haunted me.
It terrified me. The look
on Peter's face was one of fear and
despair and agony.
And I think ... as I look back on it,
the reason that it haunted me, and bothered me so much,
was the fact that I couldn't get past
looking at Peter.
I don't remember the expression on Jesus' face.
I know that He was standing there,
but I couldn't tell you what He looked like.
I couldn't tell you anything about it.
Because all that I could see,
was Peter.
And how often, in our own lives,
don't we get focused
on the thing ... that isn't ..
God! That we
can't see God or we refuse
to see God because all we can see
are the immediate things that are around us.
The immediate things that we have to deal with,
that are at hand. I mean just like the disciples were
in our Lesson for this morning.
The crowds had been following Jesus, and they had
been spending so much time with them that
Jesus wanted the disciples to be by themselves.
HE wanted to be by Himself. He wanted
to spend some time in prayer. So He puts the disciples
on a boat to send them across the lake.
To give them some time by themselves.
And to give HIM some time by Himself.
To go up on a mountain,
and to pray.
To be with God. To commune with
His heavenly Father. To share His thoughts
with Him. And to be refreshed by what the Father
had to say. He was spending time
with God. Meanwhile, what were
the disciples doing? They were battling a storm.
In the middle of the night ...
on a lake. And they were being
buffeted around because of the wind
and the waves that were happening.
I'm sure it was not an easy journey for them
and one that gave them anxiety. But here they are
fighting and struggling and losing focus
on God.
Because God knew what was happening.
Jesus knew what they were
dealing with. But the disciples had lost
their focus. All that they could see to think
to deal with, was the immediateness
of the situation.
And then they doubted. And we wonder ourselves
in our own lives how we sometimes get
to the places where we are in our lives.
But maybe we just need to stop
and refocus. Stop and
look past that thing
that is just before our face. That is attacking us and
fighting us and ignoring us.
That we are to deal with day in and day out.
That seems that there is no relief for that.
And that could be anything for any one of us.
We all have those different things
that in our life we are struggling with
at this very moment. They don't have to be major
items of faith. They can just be little things
of nature. Disease ... sickness ...
a situation that we find ourselves in ...
with our spouse, or our children,
or our friends. Those things that just keep
hammering away at us ...
and we've lost sight,
of the fact, that God knows.
And ... that God cares.
We all have days like Elijah,
who should have been
riding one of the greatest highs of his life!
He had just been on Mt. Carmel, where God had
come down and consumed his altar in flames.
And made a mockery
of the priests of Baal. But yet
here he was, as we found him in our Old Testament,
hiding out in a cave ... depressed ...
thinking that he was the only
believer left.
Crying to God and complaining about
God's people. Not only once to God,
but twice to God.
All Elijah was focused on was the fact
that Jezebel wanted him dead. And now he thought: There's
nothing left to do. God where are you? You don't care.
There is nothing for me to do.
And sometimes when we get
in that same place, we want God to come to us
in a big way.
Just like when the Lord said to Elijah:
The Lord is going to pass by.
And there was
some tremendous things going on outside of that cave.
There was an earthquake. There was
a fire. There was a great wind and
the Lord was in none of them.
the Lord was in none of them.
And then there was ... the gentle whisper.
And then there was ... the gentle whisper.
And it was the Lord.
The Lord who came to Elijah again and said:
What's the problem?
And Elijah once again goes into this horrible
sorrowful woe-is-me speech:
I am the only one left.
And God said: Get up
and go do your work.
You are not the only one.
There are 7,000 more
that I Myself have reserved
who have not bowed their knee
to Baal.
But we, as sinful human beings, can get
so caught up in those things that cause us
immediate pain ... that we don't want
to hear that gentle whisper of God saying:
I know.
I've been watching.
I love you.
Come, to Me.
Hear Me.
Spend time with Me.
And get up and do your work.
Realize
that I am with you.
You have nothing to doubt with God
because He is present in your life
each and every day.
Even when we don't seem to want Him there, or
wanna invite Him in to help us and sustain us,
He is still there taking care of us.
Providing us daily bread.
Providing us life. As well as the myriad
of spiritual blessings through His Son,
Jesus Christ.
So, in our lives, sometimes we just
need to stop.
To set aside all of those things that are pressing,
and know that God is there.
And that He understands.
And we also see
from this Account, that God acts.
Jesus is the One who left
the mountainside ... in the middle of the night
to walk out to His disciples.
To come to them. To calm them.
To be with them. But the disciples when
they saw Him, had the exact opposite reaction.
They were terrified. They thought it was a ghost.
Can you imagine the terror that was
going through their minds as they are struggling to stay
afloat when all of a sudden they see
someone walking to them on the water?
Their human minds couldn't fathom what was going on,
and, of course, Peter is going to be the first one
to jump up and say something: If it is You God,
let me come out to You.
Is that a great statement of faith or
a tremendous challenge of that thing in the water?
We couldn't read what was in Peter's heart or
even what He was thinking.
But Peter really wasn't sure that that was Jesus
and he wanted proof.
He wanted proof that it was. So he said:
If it is You, let me come up to You.
And what did Jesus say?
Come.
And Peter got out of the boat.
And he started walking.
But all of a sudden, those immediate things
in his life grabbed his attention.
He realized the wind was still there.
He realized the waves were still bumping the boat
and he began to sink ...
because he doubted.
And he didn't trust in Jesus.
He wanted to come to Jesus but those things that were
immediately around him were stopping him.
And it was Jesus,
who reached out to Peter
and took hold of his hand
and said: Ye, of little faith.
Why did you doubt?
Why did you doubt My love?
Why did you doubt My strength?
Why did you doubt My
ability to be able to understand
and to act?
To be able to sustain you
through all of those difficulties of the storm?
Because Peter was walking on the water.
In spite of the horrible wind
that was there, in spite of the waves ...
when Peter was focused on Christ,
none of the rest of that mattered at that moment.
Neither did it matter
when Jesus grabbed Peter and
pulled him up out of the water and the two of them
got into the boat.
What a reminder for us
that God STILL
acts in our life.
That He has acted in the past
when He sent Jesus, His Son, to save us from our sins.
He acted in the past
when someone taught us the Word of God.
That the Holy Spirit brought us
to faith in baptism; and
continues to stay with us, as we are
continuing in the Word.
To grow in our knowledge of Christ and to spend time
with Him. God STILL acts
and comes to us! And it doesn't always
mean that He removes
all of those difficulties that are around us.
He doesn't have to.
He CAN if that's His will.
He CAN if He chooses to do that.
But He holds us by the hand and
walks us to Him.
HE ... is what calms our soul.
He is the One who acts
in our lives to keep us faithful to Him
and brings us to heaven.
And, yet, sometimes He removes
the storm.
Peter and Jesus got into the boat and everything
was calm. And the disciples
worshiped Him. They cried out:
Truly Jesus is the Son of God!
And they brought their praises to Him.
And it is a reminder for us as well,
to continue to bring our praises to God.
How easy it is for us to doubt
that God doesn't want to take away
what we want Him to take away.
We think God isn't active 'cause He's not doing what
WE want Him to do.
But yet we are reminded: He is always with us.
He has our greatest need
first and foremost in His mind.
And He will never leave us.
Nor will He forsake us.
He is always with us.
What do we have to doubt?
What do we have to fear?
Jesus IS the Son of God.
And we can turn to Him in worship for the fact
that He knows our very lives.
That He KNOWS us and has forgiven our sins.
That He is with us and WILL be with us
until He comes to take us
to our eternal rest.
And we are reminded today to stay focused
on Christ.
There are so many things that want our attention.
There are so many things that nag at us and
drive us to the point where it would be easy
to doubt whether God knows about them or that
He even cares. Is He even going to do anything?
But as His children, we know
what God has done for us.
We know that God continues to BE with us.
And that He always will.
So instead of doubting,
we stay focused on Christ
worshiping Him as the Son of God.
Amen.
Let us rise.
Now may the peace of God which goes beyond all of our
understanding, keep your hearts and your minds and
especially your lives, in the one true faith unto
life everlasting. Amen.