The Gospel of Matthew 14:22-33 [NLTse]
22 Immediately after [feeding the five thousand], Jesus insisted that His disciples get back into the boat and cross to the other side of the lake, while He sent the people home. 23 After sending them home, He went up into the hills by Himself to pray. Night fell while He was there alone.
24 Meanwhile, the disciples were in trouble far away from land, for a strong wind had risen, and they were fighting heavy waves. 25 About three o’clock in the morning Jesus came toward them, walking on the water. 26 When the disciples saw Him walking on the water, they were terrified. In their fear, they cried out, “It’s a ghost!”
27 But Jesus spoke to them at once. “Don’t be afraid,” He said. “Take courage. I am here!”
28 Then Peter called to Him, “Lord, if it’s really You, tell me to come to You, walking on the water.”
29 “Yes, come,” Jesus said.
So Peter went over the side of the boat and walked on the water toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw the strong wind and the waves, he was terrified and began to sink. “Save me, Lord!” he shouted.
31 Jesus immediately reached out and grabbed him. “You have so little faith,” Jesus said. “Why did you doubt Me?”
32 When they climbed back into the boat, the wind stopped. 33 Then the disciples worshiped Him. “You really are the Son of God!” they exclaimed.
Sermon – “Where Are You?”
God gives us a new life when we begin trusting Him through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and we are adopted into God’s Family. Foundational to this new life is belonging to Jesus, and the knowledge that nothing – no power in Heaven or on Earth – can ever separate us from Him. (See John 10:27-28 and Romans 8:38-39) Theologically this is called “The Principle of Position”: That is, having trusted God through Christ, we Christians have been moved to a new place in the creation – a new position. That new place – that new position – is in Christ.
More recent Bible translations, like the New Living Translation in our pews, talks of being in Christ as being “united with” Jesus and as “belonging to” Him, but, most literally, the Bible speaks of us as being “in” Jesus Christ. Colossians 3:1-4 describes being in Christ this way, “Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of Heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of Heaven, not the things of Earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, Who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all His glory.”
This idea of having a “new position” in Christ – our true life now being “with Christ in God” – however, confuses many Christians, and can seem like one of those intellectual realities that doesn’t really “hit the road” in our daily living. Many Christians can wonder, “If I’m now in Christ – if I’m now living with Jesus in God – then why do I still struggle with sin? Why do bad things continue to happen to me and those around me if I’m in Christ?”
So let’s look at that.
The Bible makes clear that the power of sin over Christians has been removed by Jesus’ death on the cross. Romans says, “Everyone has sinned… Yet God freely and graciously declares that we are righteous… For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin.” (3:23-25) In 2 Corinthians we read, “For God made Christ, Who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.” (5:21) And Hebrews tells us that “once for all time, [the Son of God] has appeared at the end of the age to remove sin by His Own death as a sacrifice.” (9:26) Even so, every Christian experiences temptation: And sometimes overcoming that temptation and sometimes falling into sin.
What then is the benefit to belonging to God and being in His Family? What then does it matter to be in Christ and now with Him in the heavenly places with God? Being in Christ means that everything Jesus is, we Christians are because God has credited all of Jesus’ righteousness to our account. So, it’s not as though our accounts were simply “Paid In Full”, they’ve been “Overpaid”!
And this is God’s eternal point of view. In our humanity we can only experience history in the present. We look back on the past and we look forward to the future. But God is not bound by space or time. (He created space and time!) So God is able to view all of history as a completed act: Past, present, and future are all within God’s “eternal present” viewpoint. (Revelation 1:8; John 8:58) From His perspective, we are already complete, and so totally acceptable to Him. He sees us as a finished product.
Our Father sees you and I having died with Christ on the cross. (See Galatians 2:20; Romans 6:6) Our Father sees you and I dead to sin. (See Romans 6:7, 11) Our Abba in Heaven sees us raised to new life in Christ and living the eternal life. (See 2 Corinthians 5:17; 1 John 5:12-13) He has completely and eternally forgiven you and I of all sin. (See Psalm 103:11-12; Romans 8:1) Our Daddy knows He has blessed you and me with every spiritual blessing. (See Ephesians 3:1) He enjoys your and my presence, seated with Him in the heavenly places. (See Ephesians 2:6) He experiences you and me enjoying the fullness of our inheritance as His children right alongside Jesus Christ. (See Romans 8:17)
Our position in Christ is not affected by our personal performance. It doesn’t change depending on our feelings. Because it is God’s perspective, our position in Christ is a spiritual absolute; as unchanging as God Himself.
Of course, although our position in Christ is God’s perspective, our day-to-day experience is our perspective. We must keep living in a world corrupted by sin and in bodies corrupted by sin.
Now, our position in Christ will become our daily experience when we see the Lord Jesus face-to-face when He returns. But until then, even though the world and sin and corruption are our daily experience, we are to live focusing our minds on God’s perspective! Our old self rules in our lives when we live according to our own desires. Our new selves are evident when we live according to our position in Christ through our surrender and obedience to God’s desires. And God wants us to live according to our position in Christ.
Which is the only way spiritual maturity occurs: It is only when we acknowledge our position in Christ and put that to work in our practical experience that we grow in Christ, because only that is living by faith. (See 2 Corinthians 5:7) Likewise, it is only when we get caught up and lost in our daily circumstances and ignore the realities of our position in Christ that we are overcome by the world.
We can see this played out in our reading from Matthew. What happened when Jesus walked up to the storm-tossed boat and called for Peter to come to Him? Peter climbed down out of the boat and began walking on the water with Jesus. Peter left what his mind, the world, and his day-to-day experiences taught him was possible and focused on Christ. Peter believed that because Jesus had called him, that what Jesus was doing he could do, too! And when did Peter begin sinking? When he saw the strong wind and waves! Once He took his eyes off Jesus he got caught up and lost in his circumstances again. And down he went! God wants us to live as He sees us in Christ!
And the Lord shows us how safe it is for us to try, even if we will eventually lose our focus and fail. After all, what did Peter do when he realized he’d lost his focus and was sinking? He cried out to Jesus to help him and, the Bible tells us, Jesus “immediately reached out and grabbed him”! The Lord is near to save us when we seek to live our lives in Him. Even when at some point we fail. So it’s safe to try! And to try and try and try again!
As believers we must learn to look at ourselves from God’s perspective. We live effectively for Christ and we grow and mature spiritually when we live according to our position in Christ and not according to what we’re sensing and experiencing throughout each day. We experience victory and growth when, by faith, we live out our position in Christ throughout each day.
For Christians, life, with all its ups and downs, is an experience of becoming like Jesus. Even the problems are used to make us more like Him. (See Romans 8:28) Living out our position in Christ gives us the exciting prospect of becoming more like Jesus every day, and as we wait for His return. (See 2 Corinthians 3:18)