Chris Taylor’s Sermon – 8/10/08
Step Out of the Boat!
1 Samuel 17:41-49
Matthew 14:22-33
This past week one of my brothers sent me an article from The Washington Post. It was a follow-up to a conversation we had had a couple of weeks before. The article, by Michael Gerson, was title “Faith’s Real Riches” and spoke of an investigative profile that had been conducted by the Associated Press of a well-known television evangelist. His ministry includes a private jet and lakeside mansion as well as a web of ranching, oil and media interests. But as Gerson notes, there is no hint of hypocrisy in this case: it is part of this preacher’s doctrine that God wants his followers to prosper in just such concrete, material ways.
What do you think of that teaching, and of that preacher’s lifestyle? It should be said that there is nothing in Scripture which suggests that God is opposed to making a lot of money. In fact, all through the Old Testament prosperity is consistently interpreted as evidence of God’s blessing. There are good reasons why someone might choose a life of poverty, but there is nothing particularly good or noble or spiritual about poverty itself. Far from it. The kind of poverty that so much of this world’s population knows is debilitating, demeaning and utterly contrary to God’s intent.
It is not how much we make that matters most to God. It is what we do with our money. It is the kind of values and goals that shape our choices in how to use it. But if making a lot of money isn’t an issue, can we then take that a step further and say, along with that preacher, that riches are a part of what God wants for all his followers?
At first glimpse, our two texts this morning might seem to support that interpretation. In the first we have the young boy David slaying the giant Goliath. In the second, it is this simple fisherman Peter actually walking on water as he steps forward in faith. Each is a form of success in a very tangible sense. Each is a sign of God’s favor that takes a physical, concrete form in this world. One might seem justified, then, on the basis of these texts, to urge people to take a step of faith (step out of the boat!) with the promise that God will bless them with success if they do.
There is, indeed, in which that message is true and accurate. Where the preacher gets it wrong, however, is in his definition of success. As we look at this life and teaching, do we really think Jesus would define success as material prosperity? Is that what we get when we study his Sermon on the Mount; “Blessed are the poor in spirit… blessed are the meek… blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…”? It is, rather, a whole new standard that Jesus is lifting before us. For Jesus, success is all about life in the Kingdom of God. It is life lived in the abundance of God’s intent. For Jesus, success is far more about who we are as individuals than what we might accomplish.
It is very important that we understand this distinction. Get it wrong, and we are setting ourselves up for anger and disappointment. Get it wrong, and the day will come when we find ourselves joining that great mass of the disillusioned who truly believe that God lied to them.
If you think that God is promises his followers material prosperity, then what do you say to the woman who got fired because she did the right thing; fired because she refused her bosses’ advances, or fired because she refused to manipulate the books? Or what do you say to the parent, the wife and to the children of the middle-aged man who broke his neck and died while body-surfing during their vacation? Did God abandon these people? Was God punishing them for some error on their part?
The issue with that preacher’s theology isn’t with his basic premise that God wants to bless us. God does want to bless us. The issue, rather, is in the form that blessing takes. It may be that God will bless you with extraordinary success in your business. If that is the case, wonderful! Enjoy the blessing! But there are so many other forms that God’s blessings can take. Consider the beauty of this world that God has shared with us; or the friends and family that God has gathered around you. The capacity to think, or to take a walk on a cool, summer evening. God’s blessing may come as a level of richness and intimacy in your marriage far beyond what you ever could have imagined; or direction in a time of chaos, a sense of peace when everything around you seems to be falling apart, or quiet hope in a time of loss.
The promise of God’s blessing, in other words, doesn’t mean your life will always be free of struggle. Take another look at our second lesson; at Peter and his buddies out on that fishing boat. Our text tells us they were being “battered” by the waves; a word that in its original form also means “tortured, tormented, or vexed with grievous pain.” Those disciples, in other words, weren’t having a great time out there.
If you’ve ever been on a sailboat in the midst of a storm, you know how frightening and chaotic the experience can be. The wind is howling around you, the rigging stretched to its very limits. Again and again the bow is raised up on one wave only to be slammed down into the next with unbelievable force. Spray and water is everywhere; the boat itself violently rocked in every direction. And all this is taking place on a modern sailboat – infinitely stronger and safer than the heavy, clumsy wooden structures the disciples would have known.
Why were they out there? They were there precisely because they had been faithful. They were there in the midst of that pain and uncertainty because hours before Jesus had specifically told them to get into the boat and sail cross to the other side.
Did God lie to them? Absolutely not. Jesus never promised an easy time of it. Just the opposite. Jesus had made very clear the great cost of following him. He spoke of having to take up our crosses. He talked about having to lose our lives in order to find them. He said "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." There is nothing easy about following him.
I can understand the attraction of that preacher. Who wants to hear about a lot of sacrifice and struggle? The promise that God will bring you great prosperity is so much more attractive. The only problem with that message is that it isn’t true. It’s not the Gospel.
I wish that preacher and others like him would take another look at Jesus’ ministry and teaching. I wish they would re-read passages like the fourth chapter of Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians. In Corinthians Paul was addressing a people who had adopted a very similar kind of theology. They were interpreting their prosperity as a sign of God’s favor, and of their maturity in the faith. Here in the fourth chapter Paul tries to correct that misunderstanding. In mocking terms, he contrasts their success with the struggles of the Apostles themselves.
Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Quite apart from us you have become kings! Indeed, I wish that you had become kings, so that we might be kings with you! For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, as though sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to mortals. We are fools for the sake of Christ, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we are hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clothed and beaten and homeless, and we grow weary from the work of our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we speak kindly. We have become like the rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day (I Cor. 4:8-13).
Why would Jesus’ chosen ones, the Apostles themselves, willingly endure so much sacrifice and struggle? Who, in their right mind, would choose that kind of life? They chose it – even more, they embraced it – because they knew with every fiber of their being nothing in all creation could even begin to compare to a relationship with Jesus Christ. This was the pearl of great price. This was the treasure worth far more than anything this earth might have to offer. They gladly paid the cost because knowing Jesus, and walking with him, was more than worth it.
What does all this mean for us? Three things I hope you will take with you this morning.
First, when the tough times come, don’t be surprised. They don’t mean that God has abandoned you or that God is punishing you. They are a part of life. They come with living in this fallen world. Jesus knew them. The disciples knew them. And so will we. Don’t be surprised when the tough times come.
Second, don’t believe for a moment that God has abandoned you. God is right there. God will never let you go. That’s where Jesus was when the disciples found themselves far from land in the middle of the night, battered by the waves. He wasn’t moving away from them. He was moving towards them. He was right there beside them. Hold onto the promise, then, of God’s unconditional love. As Paul himself once put it, “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38, 39).
When you are struggling with cancer and your life is on the line, all the success and all the prosperity in the world isn’t going to mean anything to you. When you are standing by the bedside of someone you love, watching them slip away, what is going to matter most to you in that moment is the assurance that God is there. This is what sustains us in the tough times: God’s presence; God’s love; and that hope of all eternity that God has given us in Jesus Christ.
And finally, step forward in faith. Step towards God and not away. This, perhaps, is the greatest challenge, the most difficult thing to do when everything has gone south. So often the temptation is to turn away from God in dismay or disappointment at the very moment we need God the most. Don’t go there.
Step out of the boat when everything in you is screaming to turn away. Step out of the boat, placing your trust in God’s presence and God’s faithfulness in spite of what your circumstances might be telling you… Step out of the boat towards God’s promised presence, and so open your life to that peace which passes all understanding. Open your life to an encounter with the living God that can and will make all the difference and leave your life forever changed.