Step Out Again

I have a confession to make.

Sometimes when I'm driving to church, just up there at Mount Cola, I see cyclists every Sunday morning.

I'm normally coming down about six o'clock.

And sometimes I think, I want to be where you are.

I'm a professional Christian.

I'm always at church on Sundays.

Sometimes I think, I want to just go and enjoy God out in the open.

But when today, after two weeks of break, and that's only when I'm running out of energy that I think that.

And I normally confess that to the Lord immediately and say, Lord, thank you that I get to serve in your name.

That's the truth.

But I'm just being honest with you.

Sometimes I think, I want to go where you're going.

But today, having had two weeks rest and recuperation and break and vacation, I was like, I don't want to go where you're going.

I'm going to be with the people of God.

Because that's what we need as humans.

It's part of the human condition, this word again.

We need to reset.

And holidays are a great part of resetting.

I wonder if anyone here has ever made a mistake and thought, can I have another go at that Lord?

Can I do that again?

I think we all know what that's like.

Again means a lot to me.

I'm a Baptist pastor and I was trained at the Baptist College.

And you would think a Baptist pastor trained at the Baptist College would know how to do a baptism when you come out.

But I didn't quite, I was a bit nervous about my first baptism.

It was down south.

I was 27 when I became a soul pastor.

I'd been full time from the age of 25.

But I had my first baptism.

It was a night service baptism.

And her name was Linda.

She was going to give a testimony.

And it was an interesting baptismal pool.

It was sort of high tech back in the 70s.

It had a massive glass front.

So it was like SeaWorld.

You could see the baptism.

It's like happening.

But that put the pressure on the person doing the baptism.

You had to get it all right.

And so I was pretty nervous about it all.

And so one of our elder experienced elders came to me after the morning service and he said, mate, you got to time the water well, because it's a massive amount of water.

You've got to get it right.

So I normally would start about 2 o'clock and I said, right, 2 o'clock, set my alarm.

And he handed surreptitiously handed me this piece of string with some special sauce.

And he said, just a few drops of that will help because we haven't used the baptismal pool for a while and it gets a green tinge and you can all see it.

So he said, just use a bit of that.

And I was like, okay.

And so I turn up at 2 o'clock, I get the taps on.

It's all very stressful trying to get the heat right.

And I waited for it to be about a foot deep.

And I have this thing and I find out later this is blue loo.

And I'm just, has anyone ever tried to put blue loo in a baptismal pool?

It doesn't do anything.

It doesn't do anything.

So I'm like Mr.

Bean going, oh, oh.

Oh, well, that's doing nothing.

So I go back to my house, we were living next door to the church.

I come back about 4.30, and I come in the back door, and I'm looking down the front, of course, you can see all the water, it's filled up.

And it was really strange, there was an angelic host singing, hallelujah, this was bright blue.

I mean, it was magnificently fluorescent blue.

But the other thing I didn't tell you about was, I couldn't get, do the baptism like I would now in baudies and a t-shirt.

No, back in the day, I had to wear full fishing overalls, like the rubber ones, you know, what are they called?

Waiters, waiters.

And to get into the, and then on top of the waiters, you had to wear a black gospel choir outfit, neck to ankle, robe.

But where you got that on, is up a narrow spiral staircase up in the bell tower.

So this is what I had done.

I was up there.

You got dressed or coming down and, you know, it's like I'm going to come out singing a gospel number.

It's the strangest thing.

And so then I get her there and I, when you're doing a baptism, you want to kneel and go forward or you go backwards.

I didn't know that.

That was a trick they didn't teach me.

So I baptized her forward from a standing position.

And so she just dived forward.

And of course, everyone's watching it.

So I'm literally like, in the name of Jesus, amen.

She's over there.

So the funniest thing of the lot, like it was a fantastic testimony in glory to the Lord for her life and what God had done.

But she sheepishly comes up to me at the end.

And she said, some of my friends were asking, why was it so blue?

I went, oh, it's blue loo.

And she just goes, are you allowed to put your head under blue loo?

So suffice to say, I wanted to do that again.

And I have never used blue loo, so relax again.

But have you noticed that Christianity is actually built on this concept of a second chance?

To be born again, John 3.

Jesus says, you must be born again.

You need a second chance.

And because Jesus died on that cross that Mel was talking about, such a great thing to be reminded of by our worship leaders.

We sing our songs to tell the story to each other.

Jesus lived perfect life, died a death that only he could do and he rose again from the dead.

And when we put our faith in what he has accomplished, we get our slate wiped clean.

We start again, fresh, again.

It's a beautiful word and it often involves forgiveness, grace, mercy and kindness.

What do you need to do again?

What do you think of when you see the word again?

When I was putting together the preaching calendar for this year, I was reminded, I was struck by many people I know in our church family, who are a bit stuck.

They tried some stuff in ministry, in life, and things didn't work out so well, and they need to access the power of again.

And so we put together this little three-week series, now that Ben has preached part of and Richard, and they did such a great job.

I listened to the talks.

Ben spoke about Thomas, who needed to believe again.

He had a big heart, and as Ben said, it wasn't that he should be remembered as doubting Thomas.

He's just so committed, and he needed to see those wounds of Jesus, and see Jesus resurrected from the dead to believe again.

And I guess some of us need that as well.

And Richard talked about shame and disappointment and failure and the life of Peter.

And when Jesus met him cooking that fish on that beach and said, Peter, I believe in you.

Minister again.

Feed my lambs.

And so today, our third again vignette is another little snippet of Peter's life.

And we're going to think about stepping out again.

And it's when Peter walked on water.

It's been said, if you want to walk on water, you have to step out of the boat.

That's a good little line, isn't it?

If you want to walk on water.

Now, you might be like, I don't want to walk on water.

Why would you walk on water?

Get dirty, I mean, wet socks, wet shoes.

But it's a great image of doing something that's pretty amazing for the glory of God.

If you want to walk on water, you have to step out of your comfort zone, at least.

So Matthew 14, if you have it in front of you there, it has a couple of stories, which might be called the Gold Standard Sunday School.

Stories.

Matthew 14, 13, Jesus Feeds the 5,000.

Matthew 14, 22, Jesus Walks on Water.

Both stories have been used comedically in satire over and over again.

It's the sort of story that if you're not a full blown Christian, you think that's not true.

Like, that's fable.

Everyone knows that.

And you might be someone sitting here thinking, oh no, they're going to talk about Jesus walking on the water.

It's so cliché.

But it's an interesting question.

Is it actually true?

When we come to this passage today, Jesus walking on the water and subsequently Peter walking on the water, are we meant to believe it's true?

Now, the Bible is not just a book, it's a library of books and it has different genre.

And sometimes you have parables that are written in allegory.

They're about images and types and it's not meant to be taken exactly literally.

Some poetry in the Psalms and the Proverbs is the same.

It's for a different reason.

But if you come to this passage we're about to read, it's narrative.

The events are presented as facts, so can they be believed?

Can you believe them?

Well, that all depends on one main thing I would put to you today.

Did Jesus rise from the dead?

Now, Ross Clifford, who was a principal of the college, Baptist College, and he's been a lawyer in his life, he did a masterful job.

It's online if you want to check it out.

He talked about the historic, verifiable fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

As a lawyer, he put forward that fact a few weeks ago on Easter Sunday, and he said, it's never been disproved.

And I'm not going to go into it now, but he put forward a really powerful case to say, it's a hard thing to disprove the resurrection from the dead.

So I guess my position, as I come to this text just like you come to it, and you think to yourself, do I even believe this happened?

I think to myself, do I believe Jesus rose from the dead?

And my answer is yes.

And so because God was able to raise Christ from the dead, I believe he's able to put his Bible together in a way that's factual and true, and that the story of Jesus walking on the water is true.

And I think I mainly believe that because I believe Jesus rose from the dead.

It comes back to the resurrection.

If you're willing to believe, let's take a wander through the story.

Matthew 14, verse 22.

Immediately, Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him, to the other side while he dismissed the crowd.

After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray.

Later that night, he was there alone, and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.

So, Jesus sent them out onto the water, into the darkness.

And I think as we wander through and pick up what is remarkable about the story, that's one of the things we need to notice.

Jesus put them out there so that they could be in a position to witness one of the greatest miracles ever, amen?

Jesus got in human flesh walking on the water.

But the only reason the disciples got to watch it was that they obeyed.

They went out into the dark.

It was a rough night, we're told, later on.

And that makes me wonder, what situation do you find yourself in now that may be a setup for God to do a miracle in front of you?

Where has He led you?

So that you'll have a vantage point to see His power?

And then we're told in verse 25, shortly before dawn, Jesus went out to them.

And I read that and I thought, that's so you, Lord.

They're out there in the stormy weather.

They're out there at night.

But God doesn't turn up until the eleventh hour.

Have you noticed that?

It's just before dawn that He's going to come and do His miracle.

I hope you'll get lots of things out of this passage today, but if nothing else, that's something worth banking.

If you're out in the night, in a storm, waiting for God to turn up, it may be the eleventh hour that He comes, but He's a God who turns up.

Shortly before dawn, Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake.

You've got to give it to Matthew.

Is there a more subdued statement of the incredible you can think of?

Shortly before dawn, Jesus walked to them on the lake.

Jesus went out to them, walking on the water, in capital letters.

So what is going on and why?

Again, it's an interesting question to ask yourself.

Why did he have to walk on the water?

And I don't know if we have an absolute answer.

I've always liked the answer that it's a picture of going back to Genesis 1, where the Spirit of God was hovering over the chaotic waters.

And the Hebrews, the Jews, they believed that the water, Sea of Galilee, was the abode of evil, the abode of the dead.

It was a place of chaos.

So going back to Genesis, it's an unknown, murky, out of control space.

But the Genesis story is the Spirit hovered over the waters and then God spoke and it was the Word of God.

It was Jesus that was there creating order out of chaos.

The Creator is walking on top of that, which scares everybody else.

And he's just subduing it.

I'm not sure why else he had to walk on water, but I think that's one of the reasons.

And so he walks on the lake and the result is the disciples are terrified.

Verse 26, when the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified.

It's a ghost, they said.

They cried out in fear, but Jesus immediately said to them, take courage, it is I.

Don't be afraid.

Consistently throughout the Bible, when people have a revelation of the reality of God, when they are confronted with his holiness and greatness, when they are struck by his truth and power, they fall to the ground in reverential awe.

It's quite common.

In other words, they are struck with holy fear, with good fear.

And I would tentatively suggest to you maybe to think about, if you've never been afraid of God, you might not have had sufficient revelation of his glory.

Because when you see God in all his glory turn up in a way that is manifest in front of you, that could be through the word of God, through truth, it could be something that you've seen him do miraculously, we're drawn to his love, but it's just quite common that we're like, oh, I don't know what to do.

The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.

The disciples in the boat see the otherness of their rabbi and leader, and they cry out in fear.

And what is Jesus' response to their terror?

He says, take courage, it's I, don't be afraid.

The calming effect of the presence of the Lord with the person of faith is absolutely real.

Amen.

I, like many of you, am regularly blown away by the power of the presence of God in my life.

You can be going through something that quite legitimately fills you with terror in life.

It's just hard stuff that you're walking through that brings turmoil, to the insides of you, and yet you find peace.

And then so often I find out that someone tells me, I've been praying for you.

And so my experience as a Christian is, there is a peace beyond understanding that can be found by the presence of God.

And it reminds me that the Lord is still speaking into our situation and saying, take courage, it is I, don't be afraid, amen.

Take courage, he still says it.

Take courage, it is I, I'm with you in this, don't be afraid.

And then we come to the pivot point in the story, where God graciously allows one of us humans to get in on a demonstration of the miraculous.

Peter says, Lord, if it's you, tell me to come to you on the water.

Call him impetuous, call him reckless, call him proud, but don't call the man timid or faithless.

Peter's all in.

But what I find extraordinary really in this moment is the faith mixed with doubt.

He gets to do one of the most amazing things any human outside of Jesus ever does in history.

And yet, right in that moment of him about to go into it, there's a tension between fear and uncertainty.

If it's you, if it's you, Lord, sounds like a classic, open this door or close this door, please, Lord, that type of prayer.

If it's you, tell me to come to you.

I want skin in the game, Peter is saying.

I want to be amongst it.

You are the goat.

You are the greatest of all time.

You're the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings.

I'm with you.

Can I come?

Give me the command.

I need to hear your voice.

And again, we can relate to this stuff.

You want to step out in faith.

And it's a different journey for all of us, the stuff that we're dealing with.

But we so want to hear his voice, don't we?

Because faith comes by hearing.

And you need to hear his voice, not just well-meaning Christians beside you going, yeah, it's a good idea.

I want to hear his voice.

When I was going for that job I was talking about, we were there for 19 years, and I didn't know it was down in Carringbar.

Didn't even know the Sutherland Shire.

I grew up in French's Forest.

And we had this call, and it was an offer to go down there as an associate pastor.

And we were praying about it, we didn't know we wanted to hear his voice.

And my mom came to me and she said, I've had a vision of you, and Jesus is down in the Sutherland Shire, and he's gone, come down here.

And we look back on our time there, and there's no mistaking the fact that we were called to do a season of ministry there.

He's gonna speak to you if you wait.

It's what he does.

Some people are needing to step out in all sorts of difficult callings, and they're not all ministry based, are they?

Sometimes it's just saying sorry.

Sometimes it's just being Christian.

One of the very important things to remember is, wherever you think you're being called, he's there.

Amen.

He was in the Sutherland Shire already saying, mate, come down here.

He's over there with that family member that you need to be reconciled with.

And he's saying, I'm already here.

Come, I'll help you in the conversation.

I'll help you in the phone call.

Come.

Jesus is not behind us pushing.

Hallelujah.

He's out there in the junk, in the tough stuff saying, come here, help me.

Help me.

I'm calling you.

And that's what Peter heard.

Come, he said.

Peter got out of the boat, walked on the water, and came towards Jesus.

Peter, the fisherman, the average Joe, or what you might call the average Simon, gets to walk on water.

And I feel like saying, well done, Peter, wherever you are in the spirit.

And well done.

Faith par excellence.

And I just can't imagine that it was without, like, this is Peter.

Surely he's done something silly, like the slow-mo of double pull down, like, come on.

Or if Evan Clothier was here, you know, he starts moonwalking or flossing or...

He's got...

He's done some inglorious, embarrassing moment of celebration.

And some of us know what that's like.

You take the step of faith and you succeed.

And it's like, yes.

And you do the floss or you do the moonwalking, you're like, praise God, this is it.

And then you start to sink like Peter did.

Peter starts, famously, he starts to sink after he flossed.

And then he sees the wind and he's afraid, begins to sink.

He cries out, Lord, save me.

Immediately, Jesus reaches out his hand and catches him.

You have little faith.

Why did you doubt?

And if you look that little faith up, it's just confusing.

I don't even know how to make sense of it, I think.

He just walked on water.

Why is that little faith?

As I read it, what struck me, and I was trusting it was the Spirit of God prompting, is it's weird that it says he saw the wind.

And I feel like you normally feel the wind.

You can see the wind in the trees, you can see the wind in the white caps on the water, but you sort of feel the wind.

And it made me wonder, I wonder if there's a sub point here that sometimes the fears that overwhelm us are not real.

So it's quite hard to see the wind.

It can get into your imagination how strong that wind is if I can't really see it, if I'm not feeling it.

And that got me just to thinking, I want to take a little detour in this sermon.

Our life hub leaders have been looking at anxiety.

What are the causes of anxiety in leadership?

And we talked about some of these common fears that people have, things like controlling others.

We step out in faith and we're affected by a deep fear that we have of losing control.

Sometimes we have a fear of not achieving perfection.

Can you relate?

The fear of not having the answer, because we sort of need the answer wherever we are.

The need to always be there for people.

It might be called a bit of a Messiah complex.

Some of us have a need for approval.

We deeply need it.

Peter saw the wind.

He was overwhelmed with fear and he started to sink.

And let me ask you, did you step out of the boat a while ago and you couldn't control everything and it got you spooked and you've never done it again?

When I was young, I went to a Baptist gathering of pastors and I'm a young guy, I just left college, and they asked me to lead worship.

And I led worship and I did my best.

And when you're leading worship, it's quite vulnerable.

They may not be getting lost in wonder and awe, but you'd want to.

And you know, when I'm just in it, I'm trying to be myself, I'm playing guitar, I'm leading worship, there's all the Baptist pastors here at this retreat.

And it's a very small band.

I'm just a young guy giving it my all.

And every now and then you'd pray.

You're praying for God's blessing, and you're just in it.

And the guest speaker, Arch Hart, said to me, you've got a real gift.

Thank you so much for the sensitivity of your worship.

But then they published some written responses in a newsletter, and people said worship leading was a bit wordy, and a few people hacked on me.

I didn't go back for 20 years.

It just hurt.

I sort of gave them the royal forks.

I went, up yours, I'm not coming back.

But we do that, don't we?

We get hurt, because I couldn't control them.

Maybe it's perfection.

You stepped out, and you sort of didn't get perfection, and you thought never again.

And you moved to that place that Ben was talking about in his sermon, about an inner vow, like Thomas.

I will never do that again.

And then that thing becomes an idol.

It's a bad vow, not a good vow.

I'm trying to probe into what is stopping you stepping out again.

What fear that's...

It may have been real, it was legit, but the ongoing effect of that fear has been blown out of all proportion.

Did you step out but not receive the approval you sought and now you have vowed, never again will I risk that failure.

So Peter steps out and ultimately he failed, he sank, but he called to Jesus.

Verse 31 says, immediately Jesus reached out his hand, caught him, he says, you have little faith.

I've heard people describe it as a cute term of endearment.

Are you a little faith?

Come on, come on, you little faiths.

I don't know what that means.

But he does say, why did you doubt?

Now the Sunday School message, I was taught about this story, I think got it right.

They said the moral of the story is don't take your eyes off Jesus.

Who got taught that?

That's the answer.

That's the answer, it is.

Moral of the story is when you step out of the boat and you're gonna need a miracle, there will be a tension between faith and fear, fear and faith, but what you need more than anything is focus, amen.

Focus on that which is the purpose of it all, it's Jesus and him calling me to step out.

And maybe I'm sharing the gospel, maybe I'm doing something serving him and seeing the kingdom of God come for his glory.

And it's what Hebrews 12 says, run with perseverance the race marked out, fix your eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.

Focus on Jesus.

That's the takeaway for today.

Embrace the fear and grab hold of the faith and focus on Christ.

And the end result when he walked on water and then they climbed back in, the wind died down and then those who were in the boat worshiped Jesus saying, truly you are the son of God.

And surely that's the end goal of believing again, of ministering again, of stepping out again.

And God is worshiped.

Amen.

It's for the glory of God.

Now after this amazing feat, Peter does deny Christ three times and he does some other mistakes, but Pentecost comes around and he steps out again.

Hallelujah.

He steps out again and steps up, preaches the gospel in the midst of so much fear.

And 3,000 people are added to the church.

Acts chapter 2.

What is the Lord asking you to step out into?

And what's holding you back?

I find that I am regularly, genuinely inspired and encouraged by our NorthernLife faith community.

On a Wednesday morning, several times, I've been driving to church, coming down to the prayer meeting, and I've seen Kara and Joan walking the other way up to the courthouse, because they teach a personal development program for people who, they're not on death row, but they could be going to jail.

They're about to be sentenced.

And they are in there sharing the love of Christ, not particularly overtly, but it's Christ who's taking them there.

Now Kara's done it before, but what I'm so impressed is Joan stepped out and just went, I'm going to have a crack because I'm with Kara and God's with us.

And I think, well done.

This is someone who's in the older end of their life, if you don't know Joan.

We have a dozen or half a dozen coach mentors at the moment who have stepped out with Virginia, and they're in people's homes in our community walking alongside them, loving them, listening to Jesus for wisdom and coaching through life.

I find that inspiring.

I think that's scary.

I think lots of people in this room would go, I wouldn't do that.

I wouldn't do that.

I wouldn't do that.

But people are stepping out.

Stephen has stepped out in playgroup ministry.

He's downstairs with kids' ministry.

And God is going to bless his obedience.

Hamish has stepped out of the boat doing kids' ministry.

Hamish, you may not know, but he's really moving towards a full-time ministry calling.

That's what he's processing, and that's a big step of faith.

He and his team ran our first kids' club for ages.

And God blessed it.

It was a step of faith.

As I mentioned before, some of us are stepping out and saying sorry.

Others of us are stepping into the very scary thing of dating and marriage.

And others like my mum, we've just got a bed for her up at a village where she goes into high care.

And that's a challenge too.

It doesn't matter what stage of life you're at, because we're called to go to hard places, knowing that Jesus is already there with us.

I wonder if you need to share the gospel with your friends again.

I wonder if you need to believe again in the church.

You do believe in Jesus, but the church has disappointed you so much that you sit here and go, I just don't trust you guys.

I hope we could work through that, because the church is really important in the kingdom.

And the church is full of people like us who need another again.

We make mistakes, and we need to learn and be guided by the Spirit.

I loved Richard's sermon.

I listened to it driving back from my mum's place.

We had been at the hospital last week all day, an emergency.

And I listened to his sermon on the way home, and I looked at it in the car, and I loved it.

Such a good message.

And a few things struck me, but just at the end, he said, it's not over till it's over.

And that guy from England, I forgot about that story, it's like the last nine months of his life, he's used by God to raise $33 million for a good cause.

There's only one life will soon be passed, only what's done for Christ will last.

Some of us are stepping out again and again and again, and others of us are just tied up.

In Jesus' name, may you be set free to be all that God has called you to be.

That fits you, how he's designed you, the experiences that you've had.

NorthernLife, let's believe again, minister again, step out again, and hopefully we can fill up this pool, our baptismal pool, and see some more people testifying to the chains being broken, people's lives set free, brand new again lives that will last and live forever, giving God all the glory.

Amen.

Thank you to the band, they're gonna come up.

I would love to pray for you if maybe you're right at a place where you can connect to what this passage has been teaching.

Let's pray.

Lord, I want to lift up to you those who you're already working with, the ones that you are lovingly nudging, the people online and here live who you're saying, I love you, I believe in you.

Minister again.

Step out again.

Believe again.

Lord, I pray in the name of Jesus and by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit who raised Christ from the dead, that you would raise us up again.

Give us the power to have skin in the game and feel like we have purpose and relevance, no matter what stage of life we're at.

In the name of Jesus, we pray.

Amen.

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