Looking at the Waves

And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea.  But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, “It is a ghost” and they cried out in fear.  But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Take heart; it is I.  Do not be afraid.”  And Peter answered Him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”  He said, “Come.”  So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus.  But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.”  Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”  (Mt. 14:29-31) 

Jesus uses two storms to ask his disciples two different questions.  Each question shows us something about the nature and practice of faith.  And each of these miracle stories reveals how to practice our faith in the midst of the coronavirus.  The disciples in the first storm didn’t apply what they already knew about Jesus to a new trial or test that came upon on them.  What do we see in the second storm?

Peter begins well and ends badly.  Right before this passage Jesus miraculously multiplied bread and fish and tasked the disciples to distribute the food to the 5,000.  So Peter knows that Jesus empowers his disciples to imitate and participate in His miracles.  Peter asks Jesus “Is it you?  If so, call me out onto the water.”  Jesus beckons to him, so Peter walks out of the boat and into the storm.  Lot of good things we see in Peter here.  He understands and relies on the power of Jesus to equip Him to walk out on the water.  This shows his trust that Jesus can do the impossible and enable him to do the same.

But by the end of the account Peter’s crying out in desperation for Jesus to save him.  What changed?  What caused Peter to sink?  Unlike the first storm, Peter’s circumstances didn’t change.  The account doesn’t say that “Peter started walking, but then the waves became wilder and the wind blew with hurricane force, so Peter got scared and began to sink.”  The only thing that changes is that Peter “saw the wind, and was afraid.”

The object of his focus is both what causes him both to walk on water and to sink.  And this key observation shows something about the practice of faith.  In the first storm, the disciples don’t apply their faith when new circumstances arise.  In the second storm, Peter begins well but doesn’t keep his focus on Jesus.  He looks at the wind.  He looks at the waves, and those things capture his attention.

Two principles then: faith must be reapplied in each new circumstance and it also must be maintained over time.  Faith is like sunscreen.  You have to put it on when you go to the beach, but if you’re there long enough you have to keep reapplying it.  Our faith must be both adaptable and enduring.

Let’s think what this means in practice using coronavirus as an example, and hopefully this can tie together what we learned about faith from the two storms.

The first tendency we have is to freak out when a crisis hits and forget the truth about God.  All our sense of God’s presence and love and faithfulness goes out the door, and we stay in panic mode.  Why?  Because we haven’t thought through how what we already know about God applies to this new situation.  This is a great cause of our misery in the Christian life.  We aren’t using the resources Jesus has given us.  And so Jesus reminds us, “Where is your faith?”  You already have faith, use it!  To avoid this first danger you exercise your faith.  You contemplate the death and resurrection and understand how Christ has defeated sin and death.  The grave has lost its power over you, and so live or die, awake or asleep, you will be with Christ.  You pray to God for His peace and a sense of His presence.  You share your struggles with other believers.  And so you’re able to come to your senses and deal practically with the difficulties we are facing.

But the next great test is that of enduring, quality focus.  As time passes, as the shelter in place drags on, will we keep our eyes on Jesus or will we look at the waves?

I’ve heard stories about long haul truckers who spend their lives making long cross country trips.  These are good drivers.  What makes the job hard (and what makes them well compensated for it) doesn’t have to do with technical driving ability.  Their biggest challenge is to maintain their concentration for hours and hours and days and months and years.  It’s to keep your eyes on the road when you’re exhausted from driving through the night.  It’s maintaining that level of attention necessary to react to deer jumping across the highway or impatient drivers zipping in front of you suddenly.  The difficulty is consistency.  It’s continuing to do the same good thing over and over and over and over.

Let’s say we started well.  We made a special effort to show up to zoom bible studies and prayer meetings since we wanted to look to Jesus during this tough time.  Even though the virus is terrible, there’s a certain excitement streaming church on Sunday and going to youth group.  But when that novelty is over, will we persevere?  Or it might be the quality of concentration you give to these things that suffers over time.  It’s hard to pay attention over zoom.  It takes a dedicated effort, and that can really sap our energy.  So we surf the internet or play games on our phone rather than staying engaged.  We take our eyes off Jesus.  Don’t look at the waves, look at Jesus.  Concentrate on Him with all your might.

Great faith is characterized by unwavering focus.  What makes Peter’s faith little, what makes it immature, is a lack of consistency.  Great faith is durable and tenacious and singleminded.

This is a process.  Peter, like many of us, is easily distracted by the wind and the waves.  But as we sink and cry out, Jesus values the weakest, most fragile faith, and responds graciously when we reach out to him in desperation.  But Lloyd-Jones says “Do not trade on that.”  Don’t make that our default.  Continue to attend youth group and bible study and prayer meeting and meet together for corporate worship every single Sunday.

We started with D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones praying while bombs were falling.  We saw that he was able to apply his faith in moments of crisis and doggedly fix his eyes on Jesus.  Let’s learn from him.  Paul writes in Colossians 3:2, “Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”  Are you applying your faith?  Are you bringing it to bear on the trials and tribulations you encounter?  Where are you looking?  Are you looking at the waves or are your eyes fixed on your Savior?

I pray we would grow in our knowledge of Jesus Christ and our understanding of the incredible resources He has given us to persevere through suffering and crisis.  I pray by His grace and Spirit we would apply our faith and maintain our consistent focus on our Lord Jesus Christ.  And I pray that our faith would be refined that we might be a light to the world around us, doing good deeds that might bring glory to God.  Amen.