We have been doing a series on Walking on Water...

... on Wednesday nights and God has been giving us lots of insights on getting out of the boat and stepping out in faith. Wednesday nights are pretty awesome…you should come and let God minister to you. Jesus comes to the disciples on the stormy sea and reveals to them that it is Him. Matthew 14:27‑29 (NKJV) “But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, "Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid." And Peter answered Him and said, "Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water." So He said, "Come." And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus.” Peter began to sink. Was he a failure? As you attempt to walk on water you will be challenged to respond to failure in a proper way.

Jonas Salk tried two hundred times to develop a vaccine for polio before he discovered the right one.  Somebody asked him...How did it feel to fail 200 times? Salk said, “I never failed 200 times in my life. I was taught to never use the word ‘failure’. I just discovered 200 ways how not to vaccinate for polio.” Winston Churchill was asked what most prepared him to risk political suicide by speaking out against Hitler during the years of appeasement in the mid-1930s and then to lead Britain against Nazi-Germany. He said it was the time he had to repeat a grade in elementary school. “You mean you failed a year in grade school?’ he was asked.

Churchill said “I never failed anything in my life. I was given a second opportunity to get it right.”

As you attempt to walk on water you will be challenged to respond to failure as an opportunity to grow.

Because Peter put himself in a position to fail, he also put himself in a position to grow. Ortberg said “Failure is an indispensable, irreplaceable part of learning and growth. Here is the principle involved: Failure does not shape you: the way you respond to failure shapes you.” As you attempt to walk on water you will be challenged to have a deeper connection with God. Jesus is still looking for people to get out of the boat but why even risk getting out of the boat? There are many good reasons to get out of the boat but one surpasses them all...The water is where Jesus is.

–Sir Edmund Hillary made several unsuccessful attempts at scaling Mt. Everest before he finally succeeded. After one of his attempts he stood at the base of the mountain and shook his fist at it and said...I’ll defeat you yet, he said in defiance, because you are as big as you will ever be but I am still growing.

–Every time Hillary climbed he failed and every time he failed he learned, he grew and tried again. And one day he didn’t fail.  

2 Peter 3:17‑18 (NLT) 

17 I am warning you ahead of time, dear friends. Be on guard so that you will not be carried away by the errors of these wicked people and lose your own secure footing. 

18 Rather, you must grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. All glory to him, both now and forever! Amen. 

3. As you attempt to walk on water you will be challenged to wait on the Lord.

–Even though this story is much about risk it is also a story about waiting on the Lord. The disciples had to wait until 3 in the morning before Jesus came to them. Even with that Jesus did not immediately relieve them from the storm.

–Jesus could have easily caused the storm to calm down before Peter got out of the boat. Why didn’t He?  Maybe because they, like us, need to learn something about waiting.