What Brings Us to Our Knees?, Part 1

Imagine stepping out of a small fishing boat and onto a lake where you amazingly walked across the water. That would be a miracle, right? Well, that's exactly what happened to Peter when he mimicked something he watched Jesus do.

And today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll will recreate that epic scene, giving due attention to the details, that are often overlooked. Ever wonder why this story about walking on water is included in the Bible? What are the implications for you and me today? The answer will emerge as we read from Matthew chapter 14. When I did eat them, your word has become the joy of my heart, for I'm called by your name, O Lord of hosts. The picture of eating the Scriptures is a word picture that describes assimilation. He didn't just simply find God's word and graze over it, see a few things there and go on his way.

He assimilated it. Which is one of our goals when we come together, not only to sing with all of our hearts, but to enter into the truths of the Scriptures in a personal way. It means we don't let our minds wander. It means we focus fully on what God's word is saying and how it is speaking to us in meaningful ways so that we leave differently than when we came. As one of my mentors used to say in virtually every class, God did not give us his word to satisfy idle curiosity. He gave us his word to change our lives.

There's some things in Matthew 14 that can change your life, but it isn't automatic. You must eat them. You must assimilate them.

You must enter into them. We want to do that as we turn to Matthew 14, beginning at verse 22 down through verse 33. We want to see this very familiar scene take on a whole new significance in our minds as we enter into it. Matthew 14, 22. Immediately after this, Jesus insisted that his disciples get back into the boat and cross to the other side of the lake while he sent the people home. After sending them home, he went up into the hills by himself to pray.

Night fell while he was there alone. Meanwhile, the disciples were in trouble far away from land, for a strong wind had risen and they were fighting heavy waves. About three o'clock in the morning, Jesus came toward them walking on the water. When the disciples saw him walking on the water, they were terrified.

In their fear, they cried out, it's a ghost. But Jesus spoke to them at once. Don't be afraid, he said. Take courage.

I am here. Then Peter called to him, Lord, if it's really you, tell me to come to you walking on the water. Yes, come, Jesus said. So Peter went over the side of the boat and walked on the water toward Jesus.

But when he saw the strong wind and the waves, he was terrified and began to sink. Save me, Lord, he shouted. Jesus immediately reached out and grabbed him. You have so little faith. Jesus said, why did you doubt me? When they climbed back into the boat, the wind stopped. Then the disciples worshipped him. You really are the Son of God, they exclaimed. You're listening to Insight for Living.

To study the book of Matthew with Chuck Swindoll, be sure to download his Searching the Scriptures studies by going to insightworld.org slash studies. And now the message from Chuck that he titled What Brings Us to Our Knees. Not enough has been said about the importance of imagination. Letting the mind go free so that there is color added to an otherwise bland subject. If you were fortunate enough to have had a teacher with imagination as you were going through your years of education, you were thrice blessed. I remember a biology teacher in high school named Mr. Dunn. It was one of those classes that all of the guys dreaded before they got there. You couldn't wait to get to a back seat so that you could expect to be bored the rest of the time.

But not in Mr. Dunn's class. You found out in about a week or less that what he had to say was not only interesting, it was presented in a creative way. Before long, you found yourself clamoring for a front seat. It was wonderful. I loved it when he would cut open those frogs.

That stuff would come out. He knew the names of all that stuff. And he had this colorful way of describing it.

It was wonderful. Had a chemistry teacher who was boring beyond belief. Hated chemistry. He made the mistake of telling all of us that that's sulfuric acid in that little bottle there beside you and you can't use it for anything. It's only known for taking off warts. Now why would he tell a class of high schoolers that sulfuric acid will take off warts?

Because everybody in high school has at least one wart. And I had one right here and I remember taking it off and flipping it right into Wanda Ragland's hair right in front of me. I remember that.

She never knew why her head burned back there for a period of time. And then I had Ms. Allen in history. Wonderful, wonderful, very, very creative and imaginative to this day because of Ms. Allen. I love history. And I had the privilege of taking Greek from Stan Toussaint.

How good is that? He taught us things like sfrogizo, which is the word for seal. He said, think of a seal coming out of the water going sfrogizo. And I'll never forget that. I can never use it, but I think of it every time.

Sfrogizo. How colorful, how imaginative. Now I get down to brass tacks. Let me talk about stuff you think about. How about music? Some of you are thinking as you hear a great choir or a vocalist sing, I'd love to take music.

I'd love to get into that. I need to tell you ahead of time, you're in for a lot of boring scales. You know, you're in for do, re, mi, fa, so, la.

And it's absolutely bland and boring until you meet Maria. Who was a nanny who gave words to those funny words, terms. Do, a deer, a female deer.

Re, a drop of golden sun. Mi, a name I call myself. Fa, a long, long ways to run.

So, a needle pulling thread. I like this one. La, a note to follow so.

Mi, a drink, ti, a drink with German bread. And that brings us back to do. How good is that? And when you sing it, you can't get that song out of your mind.

It's stuck there. Why? Because Rogers and Hammerstein applied imagination to a dull thing like an octave. The C scale put to words. I hear all the time from people that the reason they don't read the Bible is that, oh, it's so boring.

And I know right away they've never had the privilege of listening to somebody teach it with imagination. I realize, too, that the stories become so familiar you don't think about what literary people call incarnating the narrative. Meaning what? You put yourself, you incarnate the story.

It's no longer black print on white pages. It's you living out the scene. And if this group were small enough, we'd act it out. And you would never forget it, and you would never, ever forget what it is saying to every one of us. Because behind the scene of it all is the value of seeing what isn't there, which is faith. The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of what?

Things not seen. And that's what the disciples were lacking. Unfortunately, we're a lot like the disciples in that way. When you get into the narrative of Matthew 14, beginning at verse 22, your tendency is to race on beyond the first few words. Which read immediately after this.

Stop. When you come to something like that in a Bible, you're reading a story, a narrative, after what? Ask yourself, you remember?

Or have you already forgotten? That same day they had been fed more bread and fish than they could eat. In fact, Jesus miraculously turned the five loaves and two fish into a meal for 20-25,000 people, not just five. And the ushers were the disciples. They were the ones that passed out the food.

And when it was all over, each one had his own basket full of leftovers. Remember that, because they forgot how easy it is to forget the great things God has done when you're involved in the storm of today or tonight as they became. You see, when you incarnate the narrative, you put yourself in the sandals of the disciples and that's where we are. Listen to the words of Jesus as he tells us what to do next.

The storm is over, the crowd is still lingering, sitting around the grass, finishing up the wonderful dinner he had served them. And he says, you get back into the boat and cross to the other side. Now, it's a different time, there's no boat near, there's no body of water that you can see, so you have to see the unseen, it's called your imagination. So kick it in, let it run free, or the familiarity of the story will make you think that this sermon is far too long and you've heard it all before.

No, you haven't. You may have heard some words before, but you've not seen the setting like we're going to paint it. So we all 12 of us get into the boat and we push out. Remember, most of us are not fishermen, some of us are, but most of us are not that comfortable in boats. And remember, we're loaded with fish and bread. Okay, everybody? We're getting ready to get on a boat. You know where I'm going.

Full stomachs. We push out to make matters worse. Jesus doesn't come with us. We read in 23, after sending them away, or sending the people home, he went up into the hills by himself to pray.

And there he was as we are here. When you travel to Israel, you'll certainly go to Galilee. When you go to Galilee, make sure the guide takes you to Mount Arbel.

It's really not so much a mountain as it is a hill, a high hill, it's a Texas mountain, okay? And you're up on this hill and you're looking down and the Sea of Galilee is within measurable sight and you can see it all. And it's there I would suggest Jesus went to be alone. And what a day he had spent.

Time alone would be great. The problem is, we who are in the boat are without him. And we're inseparably linked to him. We've lived with him, we've slept by him, we've eaten alongside him, we've heard him snore.

We've watched him as he's healed and as he's dealt with the criticism of those around him. And he's part of our lives, but we're alone on the sea. And if you read 23 slowly enough to let it take place in your mind, night fell while he was there alone. So it's now not only on the sea, in a little boat, way out at sea by now, it's at night.

I don't care how seasoned you are. Don't tell me how many years you've been a sailor. You know when night falls, things change on the sea.

It can be treacherous at night. I remember when we took a trip recently on a Tahitian cruise. We hit some real, real rough water between the last island where we had visited and the island of Tahiti.

In between, no islands, only the open South Pacific for an afternoon, a night, and the next morning. Rough sea. In fact, rarely does the skipper ever say to all the ladies, don't wear high heels.

If you have sneakers, wear sneakers, which would give you a hint of what we were in for. One of our speakers during our meeting fell like this. And that's exactly the way it sounded.

I mean, it just boom. And I realized that we are in rough water. But the great thing about it, we were on a ship.

Now, I have a porthole in my estate room, which is supposed to be above water. But that night, I felt like I was in an aquarium. We're underwater. And the waves are crashing against the sea and against the boat and crashing against the boat. And everybody's told, stay off the deck. And I knew it was rough because there were about 12 of us that went to dinner, which meant we got to eat everybody else's lobster.

But that's another subject. Anyway, because we didn't get seasick, we were in there to enjoy the dinner, but most everybody was, and they were sick, and they were being thrown all around. But that was a ship. Not that big a ship, but it was a nice ship. This is a boat. There is no top.

There are low sides. And we read, the disciples were in trouble, my text reads. That's, basanizo is the Greek verb, and it means, hang on, to be in severe distress, torment, harassment. They were harassed by the waves and the howling winds. Force yourself to enter into the storm, and you'll feel it. You'll sense it around you. And remember, they're alone.

Where's Jesus when we really need him? And it's night, and they're way out in the sea. Remember when I was taking English literature in high school, we were encouraged by Mrs. Strechner to memorize some of the great poems. One of my favorites was The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Remember that one, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's work? I tell you, it's a fantastic story of this old leathery seaman who is alone on this old rotting boat, our ship, and he's at sea, but it's not a storm, it's the doldrums, which we used to call at the bay a slick. You could flip a pebble into the water, you could see the rings form. It's deathly silent in this saltwater ocean. Water, water everywhere, and yea, the boards did shrink.

Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink. The very deep did rot. Oh, Christ, that ever this should be. Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs upon the slimy sea. I love that line. I used to quote it to my sister at midnight. Slimy things crawled with legs on the slimy sea.

And then he writes in the fourth part, alone, alone, all, all alone, alone on a wide, wide sea, and never a saint took pity on my soul in agony. And nobody's laughing. It's horrible. And some of you are there. Last night was dreadful.

Tonight could be worse. You're alone. You see, you must incarnate the narrative.

Crawl into the print. Feel the water filling the boat, you're bailing. You're fighting the waves. It's pitch black. There is no light.

You can't see the shore. And your fear has reached an enormous level, like for some of you recently when you panicked and you thought about some things you shouldn't have been thinking. One of our teams here at the church is in Ireland for ten days. It's a major issue that the particular church where they're ministering and another neighboring church, they're getting together for a conference on depression and suicide because it's a real issue there.

And it is a real issue here. Who could guess how many in this room has given serious thought to taking his or her own life? You would be shocked. In light of that, when you come to a passage where there is the terror of being alone and the feeling you're going to go under, you're not just reading words in verses 22 and 23 and 25 and 27 and we go on to the next story, you're entering into the scene personally.

And if all of that isn't bad enough, would you notice what happens? A flash of lightning comes and they look. Not that far away is an image coming toward them.

How you doing with that? See, they've never read Matthew 14. They don't know who it is. And so they look over and they go phantasma, phantasma. Greek word for phantom. We've got a word phantom for ghost. It's a ghost. Your mind plays tricks on you when you're in the middle of times like this.

You think you're seeing a ghost. They didn't realize who it was. It's the one who made the sea. And whoever makes the sea is able to walk on it. It's no big thing.

Any old sea will do. Just tonight I think I'll take a stroll in the storm because he controls it all. But see, their imagination had taken a recess. They weren't able to see the unseen. They forgot that in the beginning was the word, the word was with God, the word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him and nothing was made that was made except by him. And the word, verse 14 of John 1, becomes flesh and dwells among us.

The word is Jesus. He's the creator. It's his sea.

He can do with it whatever he wishes. And you're his child. He knows what he's about. In the midst of this, what seems to be like an impossible circumstance, I love the setting of Jesus coming up toward them.

Look for yourself. When the disciples saw him walking on the water, they were terrified in their fear and they cried out, it's a ghost. He doesn't rebuke them. Jesus never shames you for jumping to wrong conclusions when you're in a panic. He understands. He can handle it. He looks at them and simply says, don't be afraid. I'm always tempted to chuckle at that. Storm is all over the ship, rocking, filling with water, lightning, the waves, the wind. He goes, don't be afraid. And they realize who it is. And his words are, I am. The here doesn't appear in the text, the original text.

Who is that? I am. It goes all the way back to the ancient first, early Old Testament writings, I am. That's who's here.

I am. So forgive me here if it's a little too far, but my imagination does get a little crazy sometime. Peter, there's a lot of that in me, so I understand. He looks at him and goes, man, that is cool. How about it, Lord?

It's you and me, okay? And Peter's thinking, this will look great on my resume. Man, walked on water. And Jesus says, simply, come.

Come on. The story's familiar, but most of us have never heard the level of detail that we're enjoying today. Chuck Swindoll titled his message with a question, what brings us to our knees? Let me encourage you to listen again tomorrow because we'll pick up right here on the next edition of Insight for Living. And if you'd like to learn more about this ministry, please visit us online at insightworld.org. Did you realize you have a number of different options for listening to this daily program?

In addition to hearing Insight for Living online or over your favorite podcast platform, you can also listen on your local radio station or join with thousands of new friends who've started listening this year through the convenient Insight for Living mobile app. Please feel free to take advantage of any of these listening opportunities. And then if you'd like to dig deeper into the book of Matthew on your own, let me remind you that Chuck wrote a commentary on the book of Matthew. And if you're looking to get better acquainted with the real Jesus, the one writers like Matthew described, then we highly recommend adding these two volumes to your personal collection. They're called Swindoll's Living Insights on Matthew.

To purchase this two volume set, go to insight.org slash offer. And then finally, we extend a word of profound thanks for all those who generously gave last month. Your partnership means more than you know, and we couldn't supply these daily Bible teaching programs without your support. It's not too late for your contribution to make an impact. As God prompts you to financially support this nonprofit ministry, we invite you to call us. If you're listening in the US, dial 1-800-772-8888. That's 1-800-772-8888. Or to give a contribution today online, go to insight.org. What brings us to our knees? You'll hear the answer from Chuck Swindoll when our study in Matthew 14 continues tomorrow on Insight for Living. The preceding message, What Brings Us to Our Knees, was copyrighted in 2016 and 2021, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2021 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.