The Lord has spoken to my heart through this passage (Matthew 14:22-32) so frequently lately, teaching me that as followers of Christ we MUST walk by faith, not sporadically, not sometimes, but continually. We know that Jesus spent three years with his disciples, and throughout this time his whole teaching as far as they were concerned was to help them no longer walk by sight, but by faith. The disciples’ tendency was to always understand things naturally only, while Jesus continually encouraged them to look beyond the natural. And Peter’s attempt to walk on the water kind of summarizes that whole teaching.
So, let’s look at Peter and what had been happening to him from the time he started following Jesus to the time he stepped out of that boat. How far had he progressed from walking by sight to walking by faith?
We can safely assume that when Peter just started following Jesus, his view of life was completely focused on himself and his family, on THIS life, earthly life, and on preserving it as best he could. Here is a married man, and he has dependents (mother in law). He had a small business and he was doing the respectable thing, making a living and providing for his family. This was the entire purpose and focus of his life: to provide for and preserve his own physical life and that of his family, maybe hope for some respect from his colleagues and in the community, be a good Jew, and die in peace at a ripe old age.
But now this rabbi comes along and tells him to follow Him. He convinces Peter to leave his business, his family, his responsibilities, and just learn from him and follow him, and all these other things will be taken care of. A little later Jesus tells his disciples something about a future kingdom, and that they will have very respected positions, and will have 100 times all the houses and businesses they left behind. So, Peter's decision seems alright, but he was probably still wondering sometimes if he had done the right thing. Just leave his family, his house, his business and become a rabbi’s disciple at his age? Who will take care of his family? How is this going to end up? People will think he is irresponsible, selfish, and maybe even a complete fool!
What did Peter think about Jesus? Well, there was clearly something very compelling about this man. Peter didn’t think very long when Jesus called him. He seemed to be a prophet, a man who had words from God for the people of Israel, after 400 years of silence! Maybe He will throw the Romans out and re-establish the kingdom of David. Fantastic! Peter wants to be in on that. But is it foolish? Is he making the worst mistake of his life?
This is the view of life and of Jesus that Peter started out with, but since then another view has been growing in his thinking, and it is totally foreign to him but also incredibly exciting. If you look through the chapters in Matthew that precede chapter 14, you see how Peter’s narrow world view must have been hit as with a hammer, blow after blow after blow. First, there is the teaching Jesus gave while sitting on the mountainside. This man speaks in a way that is totally out of this world: blessed are the poor, the meek, love you enemies; do not worry about money and providing for your family; seek God first and then you won’t need to worry... But Peter knew there was something incredibly valuable in these words. Later, when many disciples left Jesus and Jesus asked Peter if he also wanted to leave peter answered “Lord, where would we go? You have the words of eternal life”! Next, Jesus is healing the sick (incl. Peter’s mother in law), he frees people from demons, He raises a girl from death, calms a storm, feeds 5000 people with one meal. Peter is starting to consider that this Jesus is not just A prophet, but maybe THE prophet, maybe even the Messiah?? And together with that new view of Jesus, Peter’s view of life starts bursting out of its boundaries. The focus of his life is no longer just on himself and his family, but on God and on the good of others. It is no longer just about preserving THIS life on earth, but about what comes afterwards, in eternity! His eyes are slowly opening, but he also keeps falling back again and again.
That night, when Jesus walked toward them on water and Peter stepped out of the boat, Peter stepped from the narrow earthly way of looking at things into the boundless eternal view of life, he stepped from walking by sight into walking by faith. For a moment he got it! His spirit understood that Jesus was not just another human, that He was from God, and that he, Peter, could trust him completely with his life; that earthly concerns were minute compared to the power and sovereignty represented in Christ. But it lasted only for a moment. He focused on the waves, on the earthly view and all its limitations, and he began to sink. And the Lord had to rebuke him: “You of little faith. Why did you doubt?”
Two years later, Peter and another 120 men and women were gathered together in a room waiting for something. They knew they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit, but probably had very little idea what that would look like. The two world views were still battling it out in peter's mind, but now he had seen a lot more: he had seen his Lord beaten and crucified, he had seen the empty tomb and he had seen Jesus after death calling him to take again his position as the leader of the disciples. We all know the awesome story of Pentecost and how Peter and the others received the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ in their inner being. We know how Peter didn’t waste a moment. He immediately stepped outside before a hostile crowd and began to preach the gospel. He defied the mightiest men of his day, the Sanhedrin. Just imagine for a moment that Peter would now have been confronted with the same invitation by Jesus to step outside the boat and walk on the water. Would he have hesitated? Would he have doubted?
Then why would we? We have received the same incredible miracle as Peter on Pentecost! The Spirit of Christ Himself is not just WITH us but now lives IN us, and He commands us to take Him at His word, to walk by faith and not by sight, to no longer walk in the narrow view that centers around ourselves and the preserving of earthly life, but to walk in the boundless world that centers on Christ and on doing His will.
Sight says: “It is impossible”, but faith says “With God all things are possible!”
Sight says: “It will fail”, but faith says “We are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus”
Sight says: “It is foolishness”, but faith says “The foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom”
Sight says: “People will ridicule you”, but faith says “If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ”
Sight says: “It is useless, a waste of time”, but faith says “Your labor in the Lord is not in vain!”
Sight says: “We will become poor”, but faith says “Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be given to you!”
Sight says: “My friends will leave me”, but faith says “Do my work and I will be with you to the very end of the age!”
It is time we started to walk in faith every day and every moment of our lives, without fail!