Come Walk With Me

Matthew 14:22-33
If I say “Come walk with me”, you’re not going to walk in front of me, nor will you walk behind me.  If I tell you “Brother, come walk out here with me”, you’re going to walk beside me.

In today's passage, Jesus and his disciples were there after Jesus had just performed a miracle.  Jesus had just took two fish and five loaves and fed five thousand people.  The word says in verse 22:  “And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away.”

Jesus has performed this miracle and fed five thousand.  Then He sent the disciples ahead of him – He said you all go on fellows while I dismiss the church or dismiss the multitude.  He dismissed them and as they went He went up and spent some time praying.  That should let us know that there are some times in our lives when we may need to get away to pray.

Jesus let the disciples go on, and He let the crowd go on.  He let them get on back and in this passage he goes up on this mountain and He is praying.  The bible says that he looked out into the sea. The disciples had gone on and they were rowing.  They were trying but the winds and the waves were beating against the boat and they are just rowing – rowing – rowing.  It says in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them.   The fourth watch of the night is from 3 in the morning until 6 in the morning.

We can see Jesus going to those disciples here.  But at first they looked out there and they see this thing on the water.  They didn’t recognize him.  They thought it was a ghost; they thought it was a spirit and they began to cry out.  They were afraid but Jesus told them be of good cheer.  He said “It is I, be not afraid”.
Now, Peter was one of those well outspoken guys.   Peter says “Lord, if it be you bid me to come to you on the water.  Bid me to come”.   We see one miracle - we see Jesus has already performed one miracle and fed five thousand.  We see another miracle: He is walking on the water, and then he tells Peter, “Come”.

Come walk with me.  Jesus says come on, come out here and walk with me, Peter.  Right now He’s asking somebody -  He’s speaking to somebody this morning, telling them to come.  Jesus is saying “Come walk with me, don’t walk in front of me, come walk with me”.  When we begin to walk with him those things that troubles us,  those things that bog us down, and those things that cause us all kinds of misery: we can find comfort for those things when we begin to walk with Him.  We begin to fellowship with him - that’s the awesome thing about it. We fellowship with Jesus, we walk with him.  He is with us, through all life’s troubles.

In this life, the waves of this life, can be just like those waves that were beating on that ship.  The waves of this life and the things of this life will batter us.  But one thing we are going to have to realize is He’s got it all in His hands.   He’s in control.  He was in control not just of the waves but he’s in control of the wind as we see in the latter part of that verse.

It says that “the wind ceased”.

But Peter steps out of the boat and he began to walk on the water to go to Jesus.  Can you imagine what the other disciples were thinking? Here they see this figure on the water but didn’t recognize him until Jesus says “Be of good cheer, it’s me, be not afraid”.  And then Peter steps out of the boat.

While Peter was walking on the water going to Jesus we know that as long as he had his eyes fixed on the Lord, he was fine.   He was fine, but I can imagine the waves and the wind.  I can imagine Peter looking down, looking around, and when that happened Peter began to sink.  Then what does Peter do? Peter cried out: Lord save me!  Save me.

That’s all we have to do is cry out to Him. He will do it.

And the scripture says that immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand to Peter and caught him and said “O ye of little faith wherefore didst thou doubt?”.  In other words why did you doubt?

Jesus walking on the water, one miracle.
Peter walking on the water, second miracle.
And then when they got back to the ship the wind ceased.  Ceased.

These things here should be a blessing to us letting us know that we should not doubt.  We should trust the Lord; we should lean and depend on Him.

And continue to walk with Him.  When we walk with him, we can surrender all to Him.  When we walk with him we can depend on him.  We can trust in him when we walk with him.  We won’t be afraid to get out of the boat.

We won’t be afraid to get out of the boat when we walk with Him.  Jesus is waiting, saying to you, Come, walk with me.

​~J. T.