With Us on the Water | Paul Donison

Please rise for the reading of the gospel. The holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to Matthew. Glory to you, Lord Christ.

Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat to go before him to the other side while he dismissed the crowds. And when he dismissed the crowd, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves for the wind was against them. And in the fourth hour of the watch, Jesus came to them walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified and they said, it is a ghost. And they cried out with fear. And Jesus immediately spoke to them and said, take heart, it is I, do not be afraid. Peter answered him saying, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come out to you on the water." And Jesus said, "Come." So Peter got out of a boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord, save me. And Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, said, oh, of little faith, why did you doubt? And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased and those who were in the boat worshiped him saying, truly you are the son of God. — Matthew 14:22-33

The gospel of the Lord, praise to you, Lord Christ.

Let us pray. Father, we believe that all holy scripture is written for our learning. And so we pray now by your holy spirit that we would so hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest this your word. Oh Lord, that we would this day believe and that oh Lord, this day we would receive the call to follow Jesus. For we pray it in Jesus' name, amen.

I invite you to be seated.

Good morning. It's a joy to be here at Holy Spirit. I am a Texan now. I'm a Canadian originally, moved to Texas ten years ago, serving in a church there, consecrated just a couple of years ago in Rwanda, a Canadian living in Texas, consecrated in Rwanda. It's kind of a picture of the global Anglican church we're a part of today, by the grace of God. It's a joy to be with you, spend time with Dave and Melissa and with the staff and clergy yesterday, and to be with you this morning. What a joy it is to see how the gospel is moving among his people.

What Does This Story Mean for Us?

The question of this text, Matthew chapter 14, if you want to turn there in your Bibles beginning at verse 22, this Peter walking on the water story—we have to ask the question: what does Peter walking on the water have to do with me? How does this story engage us? It's difficult to understand the story at times. People struggle with it. The miracle's not difficult. As we read the Bible, as Matthew Henry says, the same power that made iron float in 2 Kings 6, that same power made Peter walk. The miracle's not difficult—it's the meaning.

When we look at this, a lot of times people will take this story and make it about extreme faith gets out of the boat, or in a negative sense, sinkers are people who take their eyes off Jesus. But is that really what the story means? Is that really what this story is about?

The truth is, as we unpack this story, we begin to see that this is not a parable that we're supposed to figure out the inner meanings of. It's not a proverb. It's not a moral fable. This is an actual historical event that took place. And in it, we find the gospel. In this actual historical event, we see the good news of God at work.

Because here's part of the good news contained in this story for you and me: whether we walk on water or whether we wobble on the water, Jesus is with us on the water. That's what the story is about.

Walking on Water

You see, we begin with the fact that sometimes, like Peter, we actually walk on water. Disciples have these moments, these water-walking moments with Jesus.

Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. — Matthew 14:29

I mean, before he began to sink, he actually walked on the water. This experience of the miraculous, this experience of how God takes hold of us to do these marvelous things—it's a picture of our discipleship in many ways.

Peter is a disciple. He's following Jesus. He's the disciple. Jesus is the rabbi. He's the apprentice. Jesus is the teacher. And like any good disciple, he wants to do what his teacher does. Jesus is walking on the water. I want to walk on the water too. I want to be just like my master. That's a good instinct of a disciple's heart, to want to be like Jesus.

Whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do and greater works than these will he do because I'm going to the father. — John 14

This is a picture of Peter's discipleship, but it's also a picture of Jesus' Lordship. Because you notice that Peter is walking at Jesus' command, right?

Verse twenty-eight and twenty-nine, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you." And Jesus gives a command: come. You see, Jesus' commands have the power to affect what they call us to. This is in fact a grace from God. There's power in Jesus' words. As he speaks, Peter walks on water. He commands it and it happens.

And you see this in Jesus' ministry. Look at the end of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter seven. After those three chapters of this amazing, world-changing sermon about what the kingdom of heaven is bringing into the world, what's the response of the crowd?

The crowds were astonished, as one who had authority, not like the scribes. — Matthew 7:28-29

Jesus' authority is seen. He speaks the words and things happen. He speaks the words and demons come out of people. He speaks the words and lame people begin to walk. He speaks the words and storms are still. And here he speaks a word of command and an ordinary sinful human being starts walking on the water.

I love the fact that right after the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter eight, we see this in practice, even in the words of a pagan. The centurion comes to Jesus in Matthew 8:8. His servant—or perhaps if you translate it, his son—is sick. And what does he say to Jesus? This pagan Gentile says:

Lord, I'm not worthy to receive you under my roof, but just say the word and my servant shall be healed.

As Dale Bruner says, Jesus' commands are enabling grace. Think about that for a second. When Jesus says something in command to you, it has within that word enabling grace. He will do it.

I love how Psalm 18 has that great confidence in the power of God and what we can do:

With my God, by you, I can run against the troop. By my God, I can leap over a wall. — Psalm 18

There are moments in our lives as disciples where we actually have these water-walking-like experiences where it all comes together in such a way, and we say, "Wow, the Lord is powerfully at work even through me." There's Ephesians 3:20 moments:

Glory to God whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we could ask or imagine. — Ephesians 3:20

And I can imagine a lot, but infinitely more.

A Story of God's Power

I remember when I was in seminary, just starting out. I was helping lead a worship team, a worship band. One of our guys in the band came up to me after practice one day. We were practicing, I think it was a Wednesday, getting ready for Sunday. We're packing up all the instruments into his car at the end of the night, and he just turns to me and says, "You're in seminary."

I said, "Yeah."

He goes, "You're gonna be a minister one day, right?"

I said, "I hope so."

And he said, "So I can like talk to you about stuff."

I'm like, "Okay."

And he said, "So I'm leaving my wife tomorrow."

And I said, "Oh," and he said, "Oh, don't try and talk me out of it. It's already all decided. I packed my suitcase, it's all ready to go. I've been having an affair."

I said, "Did you have been having an affair?"

He said, "No, but I'm about to start one because I found the right girl and I'm really excited about this. It's all decided. Don't even try and talk me out of it."

And I'm thinking to myself, I haven't taken this class in seminary yet. What do I do? And I'm saying like, "Don't."

I'm like, "Just don't."

And he goes, "I'm going to."

And I said, "Don't."

And he said, "I'm going to."

And it just went on and on. By the end of it, I felt totally paralyzed and useless. And he left. He said, "I won't be seeing you on Sunday. I know we practiced today, but you're gonna be a bass player."

And I went home and I told Monica, my wife. I said, "Monica, I don't know what to do. Confidentially, he told me he's decided he's leaving his wife. It's all done. There was nothing I could do to talk him out of it."

And she said, "We should pray."

And I was like, "Oh yeah, we should pray. That's right."

My wife—this has been twenty-seven years of ministry, marriage life and ministry life together—she's always a few steps ahead of me. I said, "Okay, but you know, we'll pray, but he's decided."

She goes, "So we pray some more."

I said, "All right."

And so we prayed. We asked the Lord to intervene in his power. The only two people in the world next to him and this other woman who knew that this was to happen—two people praying in our little apartment.

And the next morning the phone rings, and it's him. And he said, "Paul, I don't know what happened. I'm not leaving my wife. In fact, I got up this morning and I told my wife everything and I repented of all of it. And I am not leaving her."

And he said, "I don't know what happened, Paul, but all I can tell you is this: the monkey's off my back."

There are moments when we experience, like Peter experienced, like this walking-on-water moment, when—and what I love about that story is how clearly that was not me in my power doing anything.

I was the reluctant prayer that night, but the Lord was not reluctant. And through us at work, I love that word from John 15:5:

Without me, you can do nothing.

But that word in the positive sense that the angel says to Mary in Luke chapter one:

With God, all things are possible.

Even sinners saved by grace or disciples can walk on water at Jesus' command. But we also wobble, and see that's the rub here. Look at verse 30:

When he saw the wind, he was afraid and beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord, save me.

Peter's greatest moment thus far, walking on water with Jesus, is followed by Peter's most humiliating moment, drowning before Jesus and all the disciples. Wobbly walking and then wobbling right after.

And we don't know what happened. People love to psychoanalyze Peter. We don't know what was going on. Here's what we do know: this happens to you and me all the time. This is not a strange story. Having the best moments with Jesus happens followed by wobbles, low, difficult moments. It happens again and again in our lives. The challenge is, as we look at these kinds of wobbly moments, what are we to do with them?

Peter clearly understands that he's at this high point with Jesus. He's been walking. He's had the best of all moments. And then now wobbling. Can you imagine the embarrassment? Peter's gonna get back to this kind of high and low again and again.

The Wayne Gretzky Story

As a Canadian living in Texas—still Canadian, you can get the Canadian out of Canada but you can't get the Canadian out of the Canadian—I love ice hockey. I still think it's the greatest sport on earth. When I was a young boy growing up in the eighties in Canada, because I was an Anglophone, I cheered for Wayne Gretzky and the Edmonton Oilers, the great one. Arguably the greatest hockey player who ever lived. My wife's French Canadian and cheered for the Montreal Canadians, but I cheered for Edmonton because of Wayne Gretzky.

He was amazing. Gretzky could score goals and get so many assists and run up the point sheet unlike anyone else. He was a master at hockey, but he was also a sportsman. He didn't get into fights. He was the great gentleman hockey player. Fighting is part of the game, but Gretzky never fought.

And I love the fact that the night Sports Illustrated showed up at the game to pronounce him as Sportsman of the Decade—because he never fought, big ceremony before the game—that was the night Wayne Gretzky got into a fight later in the game. And he was so bad. Like he's just bent over and the other guy's just wailing on him. I'm like, Wayne, you don't know how to do this. Why did you start tonight? Wobble.

We Cannot Sustain Faith

We know it in our own lives. It's a great quote by Darrell Bruner, who says that we cannot sustain faith. We, on our own power, cannot sustain faith. Day by day, the wind and the waves of the world buffet us. Hence, Lord save me is the cry both of the strong disciple and the miserable sinner. Even empowered disciples can sink. Even empowered disciples can sink.

If we suggest that our faith is always intact, that either we are terribly ignorant or horribly playing imposters. That cry from Mark 9:24:

Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.

We wobble.

My Season of Wobbling

In 2007, I was in my second church as rector. I was thirty years old and I hit a season of deep wobbling, of deep discouragement. Everything fell apart around me, it seemed. I've looked back on that season trying to understand exactly what happened. Was it near burnout? Was I taking on too much or had faith practices and prayer life fallen apart? We had three small kids at the time—maybe that was three quarters of it. I don't know what happened there, but here's what I know: it was a massive wobble and I quit parish ministry. Thirty years old, second parish, I went to my bishop and said, I'm done.

He said, What do you mean you're done?

I said, I'm done. I quit.

He said, You can't quit your ordainedness.

I said, I don't care. I'm done.

And I left. I left church ministry and I thought I'd never return. Like I gave up. I said, I'm done. I was Elijah under the broom tree in 1 Kings 19 and said, it's enough, Lord. I cannot do this anymore.

But the truth is we know this wobbling story. And you notice with Peter, it's not the last time he's gonna wobble, right? I mean, look at Matthew 16, just a couple of chapters from now. Peter's gonna have another water walking experience. He's gonna be the first to confess Jesus is the Christ. You are the Christ. Who do the people say that I am? A prophet, Elijah, Jeremiah. No, who do you say that I am? Peter says, You are the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus says, Simon Bar Jonah, flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my father who's in heaven. And now I will call you Petros, rock Peter. And on this rock, I build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. You're like water walking moment, Peter, again, amazing. God is doing this through you. Keep reading just a couple of verses later, he gives Peter another name because Peter is trying to argue with him. Jesus is like, okay, now you need to know the Messiah is gonna go to Jerusalem and die. He's talking about going to die on the cross, bearing the sins of the world. Like this is the moment I have come for this purpose to die for humanity and rise again. And what does Peter say? Peter rebukes Jesus. Oh Jesus, it can never happen like this. I mean, I think he's thinking a bit like a disciple and a rabbi again. He's thinking, if you get crucified, I'm probably getting crucified next. So that's a bad idea, Jesus. What does Jesus call the newly named Peter? Satan. He gets a new name within three verses. Get behind me, Satan, walking on water and then wobbling again. And yes, there's one more major moment coming. Matthew 26, Oh Lord, even if everyone else falls away on account of you, I will never fall away. Peter says, walking on water with you, Jesus. Keep reading. I do not know him. I do not know him. I don't know what you're talking about. I do not know Jesus. I love the fact that in verse 31 of our text, Peter's about to drown. And it says, Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and took hold of him. Immediately. Do you hear that? Jesus is not reluctant to rescue you? He's not reluctant to save you. If it had been me, I've been like, I'm gonna let Peter go down for a minute or two. Just put my foot on his head. Be like, are you learning your lesson here? No, no, no. Thanks be to Jesus. He's Jesus. He reaches out immediately. He saves him. He does not tire of rescuing you. He does not say to you after the hundredth time, you know, I've had enough of this wobbling. He immediately reaches out when we cry out, Lord, save me. And he does.

God did not send the son into the world to condemn the world, but through him, the world might be saved. — John 3:17

We walk like Peter and we wobble like Peter. But here's the good news. Jesus is with us, whether we're walking or wobbling. He's with us on the water. God is with us in the turbulent waters and floods of this world. He's with us.

Jesus Identifies Himself on the Water

You know, it's interesting in verse twenty five and twenty seven, Jesus is identifying who he is. He's identifying who it is that's on the water with them, indeed and in word. See first in verse 25, indeed he says, well, we read that he came to them walking on the sea and they see him walking on the sea and they're terrified. Now here for a second, it's not just a miracle that Jesus is walking on water, it's an identifier. Because who alone walks on the waves of the sea, in the words of Job nine? Or in the words of Psalm 77, who treads on the water through the floods? It's God alone. The God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob alone is the one who walks on the sea. It's been promised. And here he is walking on the sea. But it's not just by deed. It's also by word.

In verse 27, when he says, Immediately he spoke to them and said, Take heart, it is I, do not be afraid. The problem is that "it is I" in the English translation doesn't capture the strength of ego emi in the Greek. See what Jesus is doing is pointing back to a much earlier story when Moses in Exodus three meets with God at the burning bush, and he's being sent on mission to Israel. And Moses says, if the Israelites ask me who sent me, what name shall I give them? And God in that moment reveals his name and says, tell them I AM sent you. I AM who I am. This is my name. I am has sent you. And so Jesus, in fact, on the water, when they see him, it says, he immediately spoke to them and said, take heart, I am. Do not be afraid. The great I am is with you on the water. This is not a polite friendly hello on the water. This is the divine Lord of heaven and earth meeting his church on the waters. A storm-tossed church met by the God of Israel on the waters. This is who I am. This is who is with you.

See friends, I tried years ago to try and make this text, this story about Peter walking on water. I wanted to make it all about more faith.

The whole point of the story is you need to just find more faith and get out of the boat, or you need to be more focused in your faith. You know how to keep your eyes on Jesus, don't worry about the wind, or you need to be more adventurous. Like, come on, I know the waves and the wind are scary, but Jesus is with you. So get on out there. I thought the story was all about us, but it's not about us. This story is not about who I am becoming on the water. This story is about who I'm with on the water.

This story is not about my performance or your performance. This is about his presence with us wherever we are in our best moments and in our worst moments, there he is with us, with us on the water.

A Story of God's Faithfulness

In 2022, after COVID was sort of starting to wrap up, my family and I decided to do a road trip, an RV trip. We rented an RV. I don't recommend it. Some of you are RV people. That's great. My wife and I discovered pretty quickly on a 5,000 mile journey that we're not RV people. We bought all the stuff. We were getting into little Coleman stoves and planning our future. And we had that Cruise America RV, which is the worst thing to rent because Cruise America puts Cruise America on the side of the RV. So you drive into the RV park and everyone knows you don't know what you're doing. You're driving a Cruise America RV. It was terrible. We got to the second RV park and my wife turned to me and says, I don't like RV parks. And I'm like, what are we doing on this trip? We've got like thirty more days to go.

We had a great time as a family. Everything went wrong with the RV, but we had a great time as a family. But the greatest moment of all was when we crossed back into Canada. We went all the way up to East Coast Canada and crossed back into Canada at the main border into New Brunswick. And I wasn't prepared. I wasn't thinking. I think the Lord was just warming me up. He's like, Paul, you're not gonna be ready for what comes because we crossed the border and we were immediately in the town where I quit ministry. McAdam, New Brunswick, right on the border. Fifteen years earlier, that's the place I left ministry and quit. And I had never been back. And yet here we were. We went by the old house. We went by the church and took a photo and I could not control my emotions because I realized in that moment that the last time we had left this town, I had given up on church life and ministry. It was my big wobble. There's been other wobbles since, but it was my big wobble. And yet the Lord had brought me back.

I'm sitting there thinking, man, fifteen years later, I am not only back in ministry, but now I'm leading a large church and I'm starting to do this global thing because as 2 Timothy 2 says:

When we are faithless, he is faithful because he cannot deny himself.

We want to believe that eventually if we're faithless enough, that he'll finally be faithless like us, but he cannot deny who he is. He has made a promise over us. He's made a decision over us and his call is indelible and will not go away. Sometimes we walk, sometimes we wobble, but at all times, he's with us on the water.

You notice how it ends in worship? Verse 33, they get in the boat, the wind ceases, and those in the boat worship him saying, truly you are the son of God. Because that's the response that comes out of us as we encounter the living God with us in our high moments and in our low moments. We experience his grace and it leads us to worship him. Just like those disciples in the boat.

To answer the question I asked at the beginning, what does this Peter walking on water story mean for us? Do you see it's a story that you and I live out every week. Like every week we're out on the waters, the turbulent waters of this world. And some weeks, oh man, we feel like we're walking on water with Jesus. And some weeks we feel like we are the worst wobblers. But in every week, Jesus we find is still with us.

Lo, I'm with you always to the very end of the age.

And so we worship. I don't know, maybe you thought you were the superhero this week. You weren't. I mean, you might've had a good week. You might've thought you were the super villain this week. Trust me, you weren't that either. But whatever week you had, can you see that the living God is with you, walking with you, will not leave you, will not forsake you?

And when you can see that in your water walking weeks and your wobbling on water weeks and the weeks that have it all mixed together. When you see that he's with you, when you remember that he's with you in it, what does that draw you to? It draws you right here. Week after week, it draws us here. The glory of God, the grace of God revealed draws us here so that we can worship like those disciples in the boat and say truly, you are the son of God.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.