Walking on water (part 4)

We have been looking at the story of Jesus walking on the water, found in Matthew 14:22-33. In our last article we saw that Jesus approached the disciples in the boat, it was his intention to pass them by and keep walking to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. But when the disciples cried out in fear, he spoke to them telling them to take courage and not be afraid because it was not some ghost they were seeing, as the suspected, it was the one they knew as master, teacher and Lord.

Upon hearing Jesus’ words, Peter made one of the most astonishing statements in the entire Bible: “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” Peter may not have had a degree in physics, but he had lived his entire life near or on the sea, and he knew that it was a physical impossibility to walk on water. And yet his own eyes were telling him that Jesus was standing on the water telling him not to be afraid. And, in the excitement of that moment, Peter ignored everything that logic, reason, common sense and experience told him, and believed that if Jesus could do it, he could do it.

If we look a little closer at this simple but amazing statement Peter made, we will discover a powerful truth that is essential to anyone who wants to walk by faith. Notice specifically that Peter’s statement begins with the phrase, “Lord if it is you…” This statement suggests that, in spite of what Jesus had just told Peter and the rest of the disciples, Peter did not yet believe that it really was Jesus who was talking with him.

Peter’s statement was both a statement of faith and also a statement of doubt. On the one hand he demonstrated great faith in believing he could walk on water and on the other hand he was admitting that he still doubted that Jesus was actually doing it. And ultimately, for Peter to believe he could walk on water required the he must believe not only that Jesus could walk on water but also that Jesus said he could.

In this one statement Peter gives us insight into one of the foundational truths necessary to understand how faith works in our lives. Hebrews 11:1 says that faith is “The assurance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.” But faith not only requires that we have the assurance of something unseen, it also often requires that we have this assurance in spite of what our circumstances tell us to the contrary. More often than not circumstances are shouting at us, telling us the exact opposite of whatever we are trying to believe.

Usually when we are attempting to believe God’s word we not only have to be sure of something we cannot see, we must hope “against hope” like Abraham (Romans 4:18), because all natural reasoning tells us that we have no reason to for expecting what we are believing. And the only way we will ever be able to anchor hold onto our faith in the face of such opposition is if we know it is based on something even stronger than facts, evidence, circumstances and logic. The only thing we can base our faith on that can overpower such things is the Word of God. Romans 10:17 tells us, “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.”

When Peter asked Jesus to bid him to come, he was really asking Jesus to give him something he could believe in that was stronger than what a lifetime of experience and knowledge of the Sea told him was possible. He knew that if Jesus told him he could walk on the water then he could simply put his faith in the word of God, which He knew was infallible instead of trying to put his faith in his own ability to do something that his mind knew he could not do. This same thing is true for anyone who wants to walk by faith. Ultimately our faith is not in our own ability to do the impossible, it must be in something God said. In truly impossible situations, this is the only way we will succeed. It is not enough to try and talk ourselves into believing we can walk on water, we must have the assurance that Jesus has said, “Come.”