Broadway Christian Church ·Columbia, Missouri

Morning Worship ·August 7, 2005

Prayer of the Day

Lord Jesus, we come to church because you have called us by name and have called us together.  Speak to us, we pray, in such a way that we may know that the One who meets us here is the same One who calls us and sends us to witness, serve, sacrifice, and risk doing great things in your name.  Amen.

ScriptureMatthew 14:22-33

Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side of the lake.  After he dismissed the crowds, he went up into the hills to the top of the mountain, and he was by himself, and there he prayed.  When evening came, he was there alone, but the boat with the disciples was far out in the lake being battered by headwinds and heavy waves.

During the fourth watch, sometime between three and six in the morning, Jesus went out to them, walking on the water.  When the disciples saw him walking on the water, they were terrified.  “It’s a ghost,” they cried out.

But immediately Jesus called out to them and said to them, “Take courage!  Don’t be afraid.  Take heart.  It’s all right.  It is I.”

Peter replied, “Lord, if it is you, command me, tell me, order me to come to you on the water.”

And Jesus said, “Come.”

So, Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water towards Jesus.  But when he saw the strength, the furry of the full force of the wind, he, too, became afraid, terrified, panicked, and began to sink. “Lord,” he cried out, “save me!”

Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him.  “Oh, you of little faith,” he said, “why do you doubt?  How did you lose your nerve?”

When they got into the boat, the wind ceased.  Then those who were in the boat worshiped him and said, “Truly, truly, you are indeed the Son of God.”

Message
I Think You Know Who
Rick Frost

We have a great text today.  The first thing we have is a bunch of disciples in a boat.  Oh, my gosh!  Ever been in a storm in a boat?  In a canoe?  Oh, that’s even worse.  Perhaps you’ve been one of those persons that booked a cruise on one of those big floating hotels, 5,000 people on board.  A storm comes up; a little squall comes up.  You can’t get around it.  The captain knows what he has to do.  He simply puts the bow into the waves, tries to slice through those 18 ft. swells, and they are tossing that huge floating ship around like a beach ball in a wave pool.  Have you ever been in that situation?  It’s not a very pleasant thing.  In fact, it is very scary when Mother Nature gets stirred up. 

It’s wonderful when everything is nice and smooth, and we can see how things are going when it is nice and light outside.  But, boy, when it’s dark, and it starts to swell and stir up, things get a little scary.

The disciples were out in a boat.  It was dark.  They were out on the sea.  The wind was blowing, according to Matthew.  They were being tossed around, up and down.  Then they saw something that scared the wits out of them.  A figure, according to Matthew, came walking toward them on the water.  They don’t know who it is.  They don’t know what it is.  Indeed, they think, according to Matthew, that it’s a ghost.

It reminds me of the time Ted, our son, came home late one night.  You know… around dawn.  I think it was the fourth watch, according to Matthew.  He didn’t want to wake us up.  I’m sure it was for all the right reasons.  So he decided, in his mind, to pry the window of his bedroom open and crawl in.  Now this is a young man who graduated summa from the university, folks.  He scared the living daylights out of Jan and me.  We thought it was a burglar.  Jan had the baseball bat.  I know, because I handed it to her.  My goodness!

Well… the disciples thought it was a ghost.  But it wasn’t.  According to Matthew, it was Jesus.  He called out to them.  He said, “Look, take heart.  Don’t worry.  It’s me.  Trust me.  It’s all right.”

But they’re still not sure.  They’re still not sure that it’s Jesus.  That’s when an amazing thing in the Scripture happens.  Watch it very carefully, because it goes by very quickly.  That’s when Peter, one of the disciples, did something really strange.  Do you remember what he did?  He calls out to Jesus from the boat and says, “Lord, if it’s really you, tell me, call me, command me to come to you on the water.”  Did you get that?

Out there, dark, no land in sight, wind blowing, boat being tossed all over the place, no life jackets, and Peter says – not Jesus, “Lord, if it is you, call me, tell me, command me to step out of this boat.  Order to me to walk on the water. Command me to do something dangerous, risky.”

That is sort of like saying, “Lord, if it is you, command me to stick my hand in the fire.”  “Lord, if it’s you, tell me to jump off this boat.”  “Lord, if it’s you, tell me to risk my life.  Command me to tempt death.  Call me to do something impossible.  I mean, if it’s really you.”

Interesting.  Folks, one of the things we know today…  We heard young Ryan Motter stand up here last Sunday and say it.  One of the things we know today is that young and old alike hunger for -- they are searching for – real, authentic faith.  A genuine, real encounter with the Spirit of the Living Christ in today’s world.  They don’t want to be just told about it.  They don’t want to have it debated.  They don’t want to hear more about it.  What they want, young and old alike, is to experience the authentic, real, spiritual power and presence of the Living Christ for themselves.  They don’t want to just hear about what somebody else has experienced.  They want to know.  We want to know Him.  Isn’t that interesting?  That is the spiritual climate in which we live.

The question today is:  If you were to pass Jesus on the street, would you know him?  Would you see him?  Would you recognize him?  And if so, how?  How would you know?  How would you actually encounter, actually experience him?

“Lord, if it’s you, command me, tell me, call me.”

Now I’ve had some friends along the way…  I’m sure most of you in this room have, too…  In fact, I’m almost confident that every single one of you have… friends that my mother would not approve of, and of course, for all the reasons that I like them.  What I generally like about them is that they quite simply happen to be some of the most interesting, adventurous, reckless people I ever met.  Do you remember encountering some of those people?  Do you have friends like that?  I know you do.  Think about it.

Now without describing their physical appearance, I can tell you this.  You would actually know them if you met them in a crowd, because they would be the first person to come up to you, nudge you in the side, whisper in your ear things like, “Come on.  Come on.  Try this.  You’re going to love this.”

“Well, what is it?”

“Don’t worry.  Just trust me.”

Have you ever had a friend like that?  Have you ever had an acquaintance like that?  Sure you have.  You can see them almost in your mind’s eye right now.  You can remember them.  Maybe you know some of them today.

I remember him saying to me, “Let’s just see how fast this baby will go.  Put the petal to…  Just turn this thing loose.”

I remember him saying, “I’ll jump off this 60 ft. bridge if you will.”

I can remember him saying, “Watch your step.  There are some cottonmouths around here.”

I can remember him saying, “Paddle as hard as you can, to the right, to the right.  We have to miss those rocks.”  Adrenalin flowing.

I can remember him saying, “Just lean back over the edge, and put all your weight on the rope, and keep your feet on the rock, and don’t worry.  I gotcha.  I gotcha!”

Do you know whom I’m talking about?  You’ve known those people. 

Now, here’s a secret that is locked in this Scripture.  I want you to hear it.  It’s amazing.  You know what?  That’s exactly how you’re going to know the real Jesus. 

You have individuals, persons who are going to challenge you to do things that are risky.  That may or may not be the voice of Jesus.  You have to have the ability to discern the voices that speak to you.  Some of them are your friends.  Some of them are not your friends.  But the point is that if you want an authentic, actual experience of the Living Christ, this is how you are going to experience him.  There’s a secret here.  It’s an amazing thing.  If you want authentic faith, if you want to know what is spiritually real, this is how you will know.  Jesus, the real Spirit of Christ, is the one who will call you, who will command you, who will tell you to leave the safety of your boat, step out onto the sea, test the waters, show what your faith is made of.  Do you know that?

A lot of folks come to church, and they come to the faith, and they are looking for the One who comforts them, and loves them, and makes them feel good, and helps them in their grief.  And that is wonderful, and that is true, and that is good.  But that’s only half the story, folks.  There’s a Spirit in the Living Christ that will call you and challenge you to step out of the boat.  Leave the safety of that boat.  Step into the sea.  Test the waters.  Show what your faith is made of.  That is, if you really want to actually experience something spiritual.  That will be Jesus.

“Lord, if it’s you, tell me, call me, command me to get out of the boat, and come to you on the water.”

She started the daycare center for migrant families, because they had no safe place to leave their children while they were working in fields in the hot Florida sun in the summertime.  The hours were long.  The work was hard.  There was never enough money.  What’s amazing is this woman didn’t have to work.  She didn’t have to do this.  Her husband made a comfortable living.  So why in the world would this middle-aged woman get mixed up in an enterprise like a migrant daycare center in the middle of nowhere?  Who in the world would call her to do such a thing?  I think you know.  Don’t you?

About ten years ago this church right here was having a capital stewardship campaign.  We were engaged in this campaign so we could build the sanctuary you are worshiping in right this minute.  Ten years ago.  Over 1.2 million dollars were needed from our folks in order to make this dream come true.  And that’s all it was, a dream, an idea, a vision.  Almost everybody in our community jumped into the program.  We prayed.  We talked.  We worked.  We led.  We followed.  An appeal was made for financial commitments.  Lots of folks, many of them in this room, gave sacrificially. 

You don’t know what their story is, or what it was, or how much it was.  I want to just tell you about two people, Jane and John, we’ll call them.  On a limited income, a couple of schoolteachers in this community of faith.  They pledged $10,000 over a three-year period, over and above what they were already giving to the annual operating ministry of the budget.  $10,000!  Who in the world would ask them to do such a thing?

“We just thought this was the sort of thing our Lord would expect of us,” they said.  “We both love the church.  We want to raise our kids here.  Someday we hope to see them walk down that aisle with the person they’re going to live with for life.  So, we made a commitment.”

This is the thing our Lord would expect?  What sort of Lord would expect such a sacrifice?  And it was a sacrifice.  It was a huge sacrifice.  They did without some things.  Who would ask somebody to do that?  I think you know.

Folks, I wonder sometimes if too many of us are merely down at the beach on sunny, bright days splashing around in the safety of the shallows, and therefore we miss some opportunities to really test our faith.  “Lord, if it’s you, call me, tell me, command me.”

According to today’s text, if we really want to actually experience authentic faith… If we really want to experience for ourselves a closeness to the Christ, we have to get out of the boat.  We have to put our feet in the water.  We have to prove his promises.  We have to test them.  We have to trust them.  That is going to be risky.  It’s going to be dangerous.  It’s going to put us in a vulnerable position.  But it’s also going to be an adventure.  It’s going to be interesting.  You have to do things you’ve never done before.  Things you never thought you could do.  That’s an authentic experience of faith.

After graduation he signed up for three years of his life in something called “Teach America.”  Have you ever heard of that?  “Teach America.”  It’s a program here in this country.  They took this wonderful young man, an honors graduate, put him in the smallest, poorest town in the state.  They paid him just barely enough to live on.  Three years.  Not one, not two.  Three years of his young life.  What in the world made him do such a thing?  It is something so counter-cultural.  Why didn’t he just graduate, and take all that brainpower, and all that energy, and go out and get a great job, and make all the money he could, and get going, and get all he could?  No!  He spent three years.  He said, “Something – it’s hard to say what it was – just made me think this is what I ought to do.  I felt like I had a responsibility to give back.  So much had been given to me.  I thought I sort of had an obligation to see if I could really be of some help to some others.  I wanted to experience for myself, first hand, really experience what it was like to be with the poor.  I don’t know what it was, just something made me want to do this.”

I think – I don’t know – but I think it would be more accurate to say “Someone” not “something.”  Wouldn’t you?  Someone.  Maybe he didn’t even have a name for that One yet, but someone beckoned him, called him, told him, commanded him, led him to step out into the water, get out of the boat, put his feet in the water.  That’s how you get something authentic, folks.  That’s how you find out if it’s real.  Who in the world would call him to do such a thing?  I think you know.

What’s the most daring, the most risky, the most adventurous thing you’ve ever done in your life?  Think back.  What was it like?  What did you do?  How did it make you feel? 

I received this just this week:  “The top things you are never going to hear in church.”

• Hey, it’s my turn to sit in the front row.  (You’re never going to hear that in church.  It’s not going to happen.)
• Personally, I find sharing my faith and serving others more enjoyable than golf.
• I’d love to volunteer to be the teacher of the junior high Sunday School class this year.
• I love it when we sing songs I’ve never heard before in worship.
• Nothing inspires me and strengthens my commitment like a capital stewardship campaign. 

Yes!  You know what?  I hear those things in this church all the time.  I hear those things all the time.  It’s amazing.

Who do you think is telling, is calling Gage Ryan to spend a year in Brazil?  Who do you think is calling one of our young people named Todd to go to Seattle to help start a church?  I didn’t even know he was doing that.  Who do you think called Martha to drive five hours, one-way, once a week for the next three years to Oklahoma so she can get trained in seminary?  Who do you think called Louise last week to Afghanistan?  Or Elizabeth this summer to Argentina?  These are our people, folks.  Who do you think called Kelsey, and Gina, and Anna, and Jacob to go to a little inner-city place in a little run-down steel town called Hammond, Indiana?  Who’s calling Dean, and Neal, and Marilyn, and their friends to walk on the Amazon, coming up in October?  Who would do such a thing?  I think you know.

Folks, we are getting ready to begin one of the greatest adventures of faith in the history of this church.  We are going to attempt to raise $2.2-million from us.  We’re not going to sell anything.  We are going to give $2.2-million.  And we’re going to do it because we want to create something great in Jesus’ name.  We are going to do some wonderful things for our youth.  We’re going to build some Sunday School rooms so we can teach the faith.  We’re going to put up a community center so people in this community can work, and teach, and get together in large numbers.  We are going to create a music center where the sounds that feed and stir our souls in worship are created.  It’s going to be huge.  It’s going to be a challenge.  It’s going to be risky.  It’s going to take some real, real sacrifice.  Who in the world would call us to do such a thing?  Where are we going to get the power?  Where are we going to get the motivation?  Where are we going to get the resources?  I think you know.  I think you know.

“Lord, if it’s you, call me, order me, tell me to come to you on the water, to do something way beyond anything I’ve ever experienced.”

And do you remember what Jesus said to him?  “Come on.”

And we all say together… “Amen.”

Benediction

God of the earth and seas, like Peter, we eagerly anticipate your call to jump out of the boat and walk on water.  Like Peter, we are afraid that what you call us to do may not be humanly possible.  Of course, it isn’t, but it is possible when we’re holding your hand.  Show us how to walk in this extraordinary way.  Amen.