Introduction: How many people remember learning to swim? How many parents remember their children learning to swim? I think when we recall this, we would honestly have to admit that it was a very scary thing! And if you haven't learned yet, you can imagine the terror in the heart of a child who is standing at the edge of the diving board for the first time! The knees are shaking. The stomach is in knots. That water, so far below, is very menacing! If the board is two feet above the water, it may as well be a hundred! It is most certainly scary!

There probably aren't many children who will jump off the board that first time unless a parent or lifeguard is waiting directly beneath with arms outstretched. I know that I didn't! I couldn=t imagine jumping off that first time with no one at all there! But when someone is there, the situation is much different! The presence of that person there gives courage. Eventually, most kids will jump into the arms of their parent or the lifeguard who is teaching them to swim.

Our Lord Jesus gives us the same comfort and courage! With one difference. The lifeguard in the pool is concerned with our bodily welfare. Jesus is the lifeguard that is concerned with our eternal welfare! And since we are in a world that can bring even more fear to a Christian than the diving board brings to a small child, His promise that He will never let go of our hand is essential to the trust that we place in Him! As He keeps us from temptation, and rescues us from danger, Our Eternal Life Guard won't let go of our hand!

Part I. He Keeps Us From Temptation

First of all, He keeps us from temptation. Remember the first verse of our text: Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while He dismissed the crowd. Our sermon text follows right after Jesus fed the 5000. And Jesus knew that this crowd wanted to make Him an earthly king, since He could provide them with food in such a miraculous way. Well, this was a great temptation to His disciples! So, immediately, He made the disciples get into the boat to get them away from this temptation!

Jesus knew that there was more danger to His disciples in the favor of the crowd than in the fury of the storm! So He got them away from that. Well, the crowd's intention was also a temptation to Jesus, just like the attempts that the devil made on Him in the wilderness. So He went up the mountain and prayed alone. With everything we know about Jesus, it would be hard to imagine that He only prayed for Himself there. His disciples were in danger on the sea, but worse than that, a storm was churning in their hearts as they may have been thinking about setting up an earthly kingdom for Jesus. What's more, Jesus had over 5000 other people to pray for, who were confused as to what His mission was! So this same Jesus, who prays for us and pleads our case to our Father in heaven, also promises us that we will not be tested more than we can bear!

Application: God does allow things to happen in our lives. He allows certain things to happen to test us and to strengthen our faith in Him. He does this because He wants us to rely on Him, and not upon ourselves! He promises, however, that He will not test us more than we can bear! And He also comforts us with the fact that He is our mediator. He goes and pleads our case to our Father in Heaven. Through His act of atonement on the cross, He has restored a perfect relationship between our Heavenly Father and us. So that is why He has taught us to pray in His prayer: ...and lead us not into temptation... He promises to be with us when we are tempted!

Transition: Jesus rescued His disciples from the temptation to set up an earthly kingdom. And now, He was about to show them in a very powerful way that He was no earthly king, but the Heavenly King, who is indispensable to their souls! And here our Eternal Life Guard shows us that He is looking out for our eternal life, by not letting our faith drown in trials and hardships.

Part II. He Rescues Us From Danger

He promises to rescue us from that danger! Going back to the story, we can't blame the disciples. If we were out in a boat, and saw someone walking on water, we would be just as frightened! We would waste no time pulling that anchor up and using every bit of horsepower that our outboard motor had to get us out of there! This event was nothing other than an amazing miracle in which the Son of God exercised His authority over the forces of gravity that He had created! And like the disciples, we cannot help trembling in awe at the presence of our God and King either! But this same Ruler of the Universe who walks on water also comforts us with the reassuring Gospel message: Take courage. It is I. Don't be afraid.

In steps the ever-ambitious and over-anxious disciple we know so well, Peter. And the Lord, approving of Peter's faith-borne motivation, invites him, Come. Sure Peter, I will let you walk on water because you have faith that I can give you the power to do this! Come on out! And Peter did it. As long as he kept his eyes on Jesus! As long as his eyes were fixed on Jesus, he saw only Jesus, his faith and trust were firmly anchored there. But then Peter looked down. He shifted his attention away from Jesus! So now, he saw the wind and the waves! Frightening! Frightening enough to take away his faith that was so sure and certain as long as he was focused on Christ!

So there Peter was, sinking into the depths of the stormy sea because his faith wavered. And he cried to the Lord for help! Even though Peter's faith had failed, the Lord showed the same forgiveness to Peter that He has shown the whole world by forgiving all of our sins, even our moments of weakness! He lovingly reached out his hand to Peter and pulled him to safety. And the Lord asked him, How could you possibly have doubted, Peter? You of little faith! And they climbed back into the boat, after which the storm died down.

Application: The sinful world is a frightening storm that we live in. There are many Awaves that Satan has stirred up to try to weaken our faith and take our eyes off of our Savior. What are these waves? The world tells us that what we believe is ridiculous! Science tells us that God's Word is irrational and impossible to be true. The emphasis of this world is to put glory on ourselves, on mankind, for our marvelous accomplishments, instead of viewing ourselves as worthless sinners who need a Savior. The devil and the world will do anything they can to take our eyes off of our Savior as the ONLY one that can help us! So as Christians, we are definitely in a boat that is getting rocked around by the sinful waves of this world, as those disciples were getting rocked around in their boat!

In a way, we are all like Peter. We believe in Jesus. Our faith is strong. We look only to Jesus and aren't frightened of the storm of the world beneath us! We can easily sit in these chairs and say, What is wrong with YOU, Peter? Why did you doubt? But let's not get too puffed up by boasting about our own faith! Put yourself in Peter's place. Seriously. Have you ever been on a boat in a storm? Even if you have only been on a boat in nice weather, imagine looking down into the darkness of water that is even CALM! Now, in a terrible storm, Jesus is walking toward you on this water and says Come! Would you step off of that boat onto the water, trusting that you could walk on it? Would you really be able to take that step? It might be easy to say that we would in our cozy church pews.

Let me share with you a story that I may have already shared with some of you. One Sunday morning, as worship began in a little chapel in South America, a band of guerilla soldiers armed with machine guns came out of the jungle and crashed the service. The congregation watched in horror as they dragged the pastor outside. Shots rang out. Then the leader of this ragged army group came back into the chapel and demanded, Anyone else who believes in this God stuff, come forward! There was a long silence. Finally, one man came forward and said, I love Jesus! He was roughly taken outside. Several other Christians came forward saying the same thing. They were also taken outside. Then came the sound of more machine gun fire. When there were no other people willing to identify themselves as Christians, the guerilla chief told the remaining congregation to get out. AYou have no right to be here! And with that he herded them out of the chapel, where they were astonished to see their pastor and the others standing! The chief ordered those who had professed their love for Christ to go back and continue the service. Then he warned the others to stay out until they had the courage to stand up for their beliefs!

What would we do if we were in their situation? Do we have a right to be in church? Would Jesus have to chide us: Oh, you of little faith!? It is a good thing that our life is not one of relying upon our faith, but relying upon the cross, ONLY through the help of Christ! This is why it is so important to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, and not on the worldly troubles around us!

The bottom line is that believing in Jesus is nothing that we can do on our own. It all depends on our Lord who assures us to Take courage. It is I. Don=t be afraid. He wants us to keep our eyes fixed on Him and see that His hand is stretched out to grab us. He grabs us! We don't hold onto Him! But when our eyes wander away from Him, the storm of the world can make it difficult for us to see that His hand is there stretched out and waiting to grab us! He promises to take care of us. He has given us all we need to trust in Him through his Word. Even though we haven't seen Him walk on water, He promises, Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

Jesus could have just beamed Peter back into the boat, but Jesus has always loved to show us that personal loving concern. He showed Peter that personal touch by taking his hand. He shows us that personal touch by not only comforting us with the Gospel message that we can hear, but also lets us see, touch, and taste the price He paid for us, His body and blood, as we partake of the Lord's Supper. What a personal, caring touch there is to this special Sacrament in which the Spirit strengthens our faith in our Savior, and seals to us the forgiveness of sins!

When we face trouble in this world, and the devil is gnawing away at our faith, and trying to raise doubt in our hearts, we can use Peter's prayer for our example: Lord, save me! It is only three words long! Nothing fancy. It was not the wordy prayer of a Bible scholar but the simple plea for help from the heart of a Christian. And there Jesus was, the Lifeguard of all lifeguards, with His arm reaching out to drowning Peter. He promises the same answer to our prayers! He forgives all of our sins, even when we show a weak faith like Peter did.

Conclusion: The man walking on the water that day, who is the master of wind and wave, who has control over laws of gravity, and who is the Ruler of all creation, deserves our highest praise! This same man walking on the water also has shown us the highest love by dying on the cross to pay the debt of all our sins. With our whole lives we thank Him for this! Because this same man who reached out to Peter also reaches his hand out to each and every one of us, personally, and pulls us out of the helpless state of sin we were drowning in! So we join His disciples in confessing: Truly He is the Son of God! Amen.

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