One of the reasons God will allow turmoil that He doesn't ease is He wants to bump up your understanding of who He is. Dr. Tony Evans says God wants us to know that He operates outside of the limitations of the natural world. He wants you to see that if you hang with Him, you can walk on water with Him. This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. Just as the physical world experiences severe weather events, our lives are subject to spiritual tempests that will try to overcome us when they hit. But in today's message, Dr. Evans explains why having the Lord in your life can make you stronger than any storm you'll need to face.
Let's join him as he begins. He tells us in Matthew chapter 14 verse 22 that Jesus made the disciples get into the boat. They weren't volunteering to get in the boat. He had to force them to get in the boat. He had to convince them, one version says, to get into the boat. They didn't want to leave.
They didn't want to leave for two reasons. They didn't want to leave Jesus, but they knew the weather forecast wasn't in their favor. These are guys who lived on the water. These were fishermen. They lived on the Sea of Galilee, and they knew things looked shaky.
And this is not a good time to go, especially when we're going to go later in the evening. It's not a good time, so Jesus had to force them out. So he makes them get in the boat and go to the other side.
Sometimes God will put you in challenging situations that you can't avoid because he's going to force it on you. As you remember the story, as they were going, when they got to the middle, it says that they were battered by the waves in verse 24, for the wind was contrary. In other words, the wind was blocking them to get where they were told to go. As you recall, not only that, but it was the fourth watch of the night.
That's 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. So they're trying to make it in darkness. They can't see. So they've been forced to go where they don't want to go. They're being blocked to get there by circumstances out of their control. It's dark because they've been out there so long now. Night has set in, and the wind is so contrary, they've been out there for hours trying to make it.
So that means they're tired. Then on top of all of that, we're told that the disciples saw Jesus, verse 26, walking on the sea, and they were terrified. It is a ghost, and they cried out in fear. Then Jesus comes and He says in verse 27, Take carriage in His eye, do not be afraid. Some of the versions say, Be of good cheer.
In other words, I want you to rejoice in your bad situation. I'm here. Do not be afraid. We're told that Jesus got to them walking on the water. So I want to talk to you today about you starting to walk on water, because now we come to the part of the story that Luke and Mark and John don't talk about, but Matthew does. We're told in verse 28, Peter said to Him, Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water. The storm has not subsided yet.
The winds are still blowing. Jesus has come to them on top of the problem, because the problem has not yet been solved. Their fear, their storm, all of the negative things are still right in front of them, and Jesus comes to them on the problem. They didn't recognize Him because they weren't looking for Him.
See, because a lot of times when you're in a stormy situation, you aren't looking for Jesus because you've been so overwhelmed by the presence of the storm and the negative circumstances that it's causing you consternation, fear, anxiety. But Peter is different. Peter says, I heard what you just said.
You said, take carriage. It is I. Don't be afraid. So I want you to tell me to join you on top of the problem, because Jesus came to them on top of the problem. I'm with 11 other guys who are terrified. I'm with my peeps. And they're scared to death because we're in this bad situation, but you're walking on top of it.
I want to hang out with you on top of it, rather than them who are succumbing to it. But I'm not going to do that unless you tell me I can. So He says, bid me, command me to come to you on the water. So if you're going to start walking on water, the first thing you got to do is ask permission. He says, bid me come to you.
Because if you try to walk on water and it hasn't been okayed, you're going to drown. He's asking for, watch this, a personal word to Him. Jesus has given a general word to all. He says to all of them, be not afraid.
It is I. He tells that to everybody. Peter says, I don't just want a general word.
I want you to bid me to come. So whenever you have a situation in your life that is tumultuous, that threatens your well-being, and you know it's controlling your emotions, because like them, you're terrified about the repercussions, whenever all of that happens, that is your water. Walking on water means you're on top of it.
It's not swallowing you. The first thing you got to do if you're going to walk on your circumstance and not drown in them, is to ask permission to enter into the realm of the supernatural, because the natural is sucking you under. Once you ask permission, you must listen for a response, because He didn't do anything until He heard come. But if you're in a tumultuous situation, you have to be close enough to Jesus to hear the response. Because if Jesus and you aren't close, even if He says come, you won't hear it. But He heard Jesus say come in the turmoil. So you make the request, and then you listen for the rhema word, where He tells you what to do. But then there's something else you got to do, because it says in verse 29, and Peter got out of the boat. You can't make your request, hear the response, and stay where you are. Jesus said come, and He didn't stay. See, because you can hear what God says and not move on it.
But if you don't move on it, what He says will lie dormant, not because His statement was dormant, but because there wasn't a response. So He had to get out of the boat. So if you're going to walk on water, you must be willing to leave your comfort zone. Just because you're on your way to heaven doesn't mean you're willing to take the risk of faith. But what God wants to raise up in our lives personally and in us collectively are water walkers, people who will take risk on the supernatural.
Peter joins Jesus walking on the problem that was causing them to be terrified. See, one of the ways you know you're walking with Jesus is that the circumstances are no longer calling the shots, even though they haven't changed. The circumstances haven't changed.
You'll see that in a moment. They're still in stormy weather. Nothing has changed, except He's walking on it. It's not walking on Him.
And to do that sometimes, you've got to leave the crowd behind. Verse 30, but seeing the wind, He became frightened and began to sink. He cried out, Lord, save me.
Why is He terrified? His focus changed. He's walking on water because He shifted from the wind to Jesus. But now it shifts, so now He sees the wind and not Jesus. He's beginning to sink. As He's going down in the water, afraid, because His focus is now on the wind and not the command He was given by the Lord, the problem that He was walking on is now about to walk on Him, because the problem didn't change.
The wind is still tumultuous, but now He's beginning to slowly go under, and the further He is going down, His focus reshifts. Lord, save me. That's prayer number two. Prayer number one is, let me come.
Prayer number two, help! And the difference between the two prayers was focus, what He was looking at. He was looking at Jesus, so He got out the boat. He stopped looking at Jesus.
He began to sink. He looked back at Jesus and says, and the Lord reached down and grabbed Him. Dr. Evans will continue our look at the relationship between the natural and the spiritual when he returns with more of our message in just a moment. First, though, if you need help building the kind of faith that can weather the storms of life, Tony provides it in our current series, Having Faith During Fear. Through these messages, you'll learn why the idea that we're in control is a myth and discover how much better life can be when we admit the truth and recognize God's authority.
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Do not be caught off guard. It is when we learn to operate with the spiritual informing the natural and not the natural informing the spiritual that you get to walk on water. But when the natural informs the spiritual, then you are limited to the natural and you sink because that's what you do in water. You go down.
Okay, what exactly went wrong? Well, he tells us. Because we're told in verse 31, Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and took hold of him and said to him, You of little faith, why did you doubt? So evidently, you can have faith and doubt operating in the same space because he tells them you have little faith, but he tells them with the faith you had doubt. When doubt rises, faith shrinks. When faith rises, doubt shrinks. He got out of the boat in faith. So whatever fear that was in the boat lessened because faith grew because he got out the boat.
But once he shifted his focus, doubt grew because he was seeing all the winds and the waves. And as doubt grew, faith lost its clout. Faith lost its juice.
Faith couldn't save him because the natural world had become his focus. When the natural world, where the five senses operate, begin to overrule the sixth sense of the spiritual, then the circumstances will take over and you will begin to sink. How fast you sink, how quick you sink will be determined by how fast the doubt grows and how fast the faith shrinks. He didn't give up all faith, but he did allow doubt to escalate. And once that happened, the supernatural power and presence left and he began to sink.
He began to go down. He says, you of little faith, why did you doubt? I called you out here, got you started in a miracle, and now you're losing the juice of the miracle because you shifted your focus. It says, then when they, Peter and Jesus, because they're rolling buddies now, they're walking into the boat, according to verse 32, when they got into the boat, the wind stopped. So all this time, the wind has not stopped.
It's tumultuous out there, scaring fishermen to death. It says, when they got into the boat, when Jesus, Jesus didn't just get into the boat, Jesus and Peter got into the boat. So when Jesus got into the boat with the miracle man who walked on water, the wind stopped.
And what happened when the wind stopped? Don't miss this lesson, verse 33. And those who were in the boat worshiped him, worshiped Jesus. And the Bible says you only worship God, any other worship is idolatry, so they worship Jesus because Jesus is God, saying you are certainly God's son. Okay, let's do a little Bible study.
I mentioned this last time. In Mark chapter 4, when Jesus was asleep on the cushion and He said, peace be still, they said, what manner of man is this that even the winds and the wave obey Him? That's in Mark 4.
This happens after Mark 4. It's in Mark 6 or Matthew 14. In Matthew 14, they don't say what manner of man is this. They say certainly this is the Son of God.
So they didn't bump Jesus up a notch. When He did the first miracle, He's just a unique man. What manner of man is this where the winds and the wave obey Him?
But in Matthew chapter 14, He says this must certainly be the Son of God. One of the reasons, watch this, that God will allow, create, bring you into turmoil, that He doesn't ease, is He wants to bump up your understanding of who He is. He wants to bump up your knowledge of who He is. He wants you to see that He operates in a whole different zone and that if you hang with Him, you can walk on water with Him. And then you can then enter the boat with Him to other folk who are scared to death to calm them down when they see your miracle at work in their presence.
They get in the boat and they see the supernatural at work. Oh, the Bible is full of folk who took risk. Rahab took a risk on God. All of Jericho was against God and against Israel. But she said, I'm going to let the spies in, send them out another way, and the spies said, because you have took your bet on God, because she said, I done heard about your God, how He opened up the Red Sea, and even though everybody in Jericho is against you, I'm hanging with y'all.
And the Bible says, when the walls of Jericho came tumbling down, there was one piece of the wall left standing, and that was Rahab's house, and her whole family was saved. Esther took a risk on God. Mordecai said, if you go to the king, you can be used of God to save the people. She said, the king has not called me, and I risked my life to go into the king. Mordecai said, if you don't go, God's going to find somebody else to go.
So the question is, do you want to use Him? Don't think by your rebellion you're going to get away from the problem. She said, okay, I got the message. If I perish, I perish. And she took a risk on God. And when she took a risk on God, He saved the whole nation of Israel. Daniel took a risk on God.
In Daniel chapter 1, he's a teenager. He was told to eat meat offered to idols. He says, I know y'all not going to like this.
I know y'all not going to want this, and I'm going to look like the odd man out. But I can't eat meat offered to idols. And when it refused to eat meat offered to idols, in verse 8, verse 9 says, now God. After He made His stand against everybody else, God stepped in and brought Him and made Him cream of the crop, because He took a risk on God. Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego took a risk on God. They said, Nebuchadnezzar, we're not going to bow before your fiery furnace. And if you're going to throw us in the fire, we're still going to bet on God, even though we're only three people who are going to take a risk on God. And the Bible says, and God joined them in the fiery furnace.
And He put in three, but there were four, because God loves folk who take risk on Him to see the supernatural. We had a man in our church, and I was preaching through the book of Nehemiah. And it talked about how Nehemiah left and rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem.
He took a risk to go back home to rebuild the walls. He said while he was sitting and listening at the sermon, God gave him a rhema word. The rhema word was, you need to leave your job, start your own business, because I have something different for you to do than that nine to five that you've been working on. He couldn't shake it and knew he heard from God. He stepped out, began his own business.
He and his wife came to me a few months ago. Pastor, I just want you to know that because of the new business that I started, when I heard from God, me and my wife can retire early, because I took a risk on God when I heard a rhema word. When you listen to a rhema word from God, you can bet on God, take a risk on God. And if you take a risk on God, you'll get the chance to see the supernatural operating in the natural.
Dr. Tony Evans with some valuable biblical insights for us in a message called, Start Walking on Water. Now if you'd like to get the full length version of this lesson, copies are available on CD or digital download. You can get them as a part of that entire six message series I told you about earlier called, Having Faith During Fear. Remember, when you help support the alternative broadcast with a contribution, we'll say thanks by sending you this powerful audio series along with the Hope for the Hurting Leader Kit, including the book, study guide, study session materials, teaching videos, and more. But this is a special limited time offer, so don't wait. Drop by our website, tonyevans.org, to let us know you'd like to take advantage of this exclusive deal. Or give us a phone call at 1-800-800-3222, where the friendly people on our resource team are ready 24-7 to help you. Again, that's 1-800-800-3222. I'll tell you about what's in store for tomorrow, right after this. There's a remarkable number of people who've been coming to church for years, but still have no idea how to explain the basics of the gospel message. Tomorrow, Dr. Evans presents the incomparable truth about what's so good about the good news. I hope you'll join us for that.
