THE BEAT e112 Jesus, Persuade My Heart

This is Faith to Witness 99, motivating us to hear God and share the Shepherd.

Season 2 Episode 112 

The Beat  |  Jesus, Persuade My Heart

Quick Take

Hey human, in this episode we immerse ourselves in walking on water. We consider Peter’s command, Jesus’ command in response, the disciples witnessing a John 1:14 moment. Ponder faith and a proposal on how our denial can ignite Jesus to command our hearts. Thanks for listening.

 How has God shown up for you today?

I’m Kathryn Bise, your host.  

I want to walk on water with Jesus. I want to go where he goes and do the things that only he can do. I can’t really blame the disciples for crying out in fear when they saw a “ghost” on the water. I might do the same.

Before we think about what this all means, what did Jesus say to Peter?

Jesus Walks on the Water

 

Matthew 14: 22-32

 

22 Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. 23 After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, 24 and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.

25 Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. 26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.

27 But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

28 “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”

29 “Come,” he said.

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”

31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

32 And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. 33 Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

Well, this scene started with the disciples being terrified, so terrified that they cried out in fear when they saw Jesus. They thought he was a ghost. No living man could do this.

Jesus responded immediately. This is important, that he did not leave his disciples in fear, that his heart was made for assuring us that he is with us. He told them to take courage. This is also translated as “be of good comfort” which Jesus said to others too. The woman who had bled for 12 years and touched his robe. And the blind man outside of Jericho.

Peter responded immediately too. He spoke up.

He said, 28 “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”

Peter Requests a Command

Was Peter testing Jesus’ deity by requesting a command that would put Peter in the center of a miracle they could all see? Walking on water. I could understand it if this were true. And it may be. A command that empowered a common fisherman who spent his livelihood in a boat on top of the water, a simple working man, to get out of the boat and walk on water. A representation of his divine ability to bear witness to His Heavenly Father, to bear witness that he is the Messiah.

My heart tells me that there is a powerful abiding truth for each of us embedded in this command. Actually, it is embedded in Peter’s nature, a nature we share with him. And it is this.

Peter asked Jesus to inspire him to get out of the boat. Peter wanted Jesus to tell him to come to him. To command it, and in so doing, persuade him to take that first step. Without it, he would not.

I find this to be so redeeming. Hear me out.

Think about Jesus’ response to Peter’s question. He did not engage in a persuasive argument noting that if he weren’t the Son of God, he would be sinking. He didn’t challenge Peter with a response maybe something like, “how else could he get there from shore?” And if he was not the Son of God “how did he find the boat in such a terrible storm?”  I should note that the storms on the Sea of Galilee are historically violent.

Jesus needed only one word that came out of his nature, his power to rule over the water, the wind, the creation.

“Come.”

A John 1:14 Moment

This invitation, this command, and oh I imagine it to reverberate across the waves on every ocean he created, I imagine it to embrace the ears of all the disciples looking on, this full-throated command embodies the Messiah’s faith in His Heavenly Father, the Messiah’s faith as the Son of God, a Son who is on that lakebecause he is divinely persuaded by his Heavenly Father’s will to be God Incarnate.

John 1:14

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

The disciples are in the middle of the Sea of Galilee witnessing a John 1:14 moment when Jesus made his dwelling among them.

Peter gets down out of the boat. “Down” is the scary part for me. The part I forget about, but so glad on this reading I see again. Because it’s not easy on a calm day to grab the side of the boat and hoist yourself over and into it. In a storm, just no.

Peter gets down, so Jesus can lift him up.

He walks on the water toward Jesus. Peter is watching Jesus.

When his focus turns from Jesus to the wind, his fear, better said, his human nature begins to sink him.

31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him.”

A hand of “good comfort.”

“Why Did You Doubt?”

Jesus says: “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?

Jesus wanted Peter to understand where his doubt comes from, a doubt that short-changes and deceives Peter about Jesus’ nature, his sovereignty over his creation.

Deception is the darkest distraction of the heart.

This is where “little faith” comes from. Denying, blocking divine persuasion because we do not deeply know the omnipotence of our Savior. So, we turn our face into every gust of wind.

Peter’s command to Jesus was born out of his denial to get down out of the boat without it. Without a command he can hear, that will inspire him.

This is important for us.

Recognizing our denials and why. And asking Jesus for divine persuasion as the first step.

Asking Jesus for his faithfulness. Because our faith is a gift from God through his Son.

To not assume that what we believe about him will get us out of the boat.

What I mean by this is that when I deny doing what Jesus commands me to do, I fall into some ridiculous state of self-acceptance of my human nature. My earthly lot in this life.

That simply won’t do if I want to spiritually grow. It’s true for you too.

Ask Jesus to Command Our Hearts

Instead of accepting my human condition, I can ask as Peter did, for a command.

It’s really a command of the heart. 

A command to help me, to help us do that which we cannot do on our own. A command from God’s divine nature to persuade us in that moment to do the things that we can only do with God, or we will sink.

Asking our Savior this: 

Jesus, persuade my heart, give me the desire to get down out of the boat.

To get out of the boat, all day long.

To get out of the boat, on days when I don’t feel like walking on water with you. (that’s today by the way)

To get out of the boat because you command it: You tell me to “come” to you, to join you in helping someone find you, helping someone get closer to you, helping someone see the need for you.

What if we get really good at asking Jesus to command our hearts to “come” to him? And we responded to that command?

What if we get really good at stepping “down” out of the boat, into the water, keeping our eyes on the One walking on the water toward us. And every day we step down, eyes up, on the man walking on water.

This is how God gives us our measure of faith to witness to the one.

Ask Jesus for the command. Hear his command. “Come.”

It is about the divine persuasion that comes from trusting that God Incarnate walking on water toward us is the Son of God.

That’s what the disciples said, when Jesus got in the boat and the wind died down.

32 And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. 33 Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

Jesus is not asking Peter to be brave; he is asking Peter to trust the faith of the Son of God. It’s not our faith, it is his. The gift of faith Paul describes in Ephesians is all God. No human attributes. What we receive as believers is God’s divine persuasion that leads us to walk-on-water experiences that transcend the limitations of our human nature.

Ephesians 2:8-9

8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

God will ask us to do what we cannot do without him.

Doesn’t God want his nature revealed in everything I do to build the heavenly kingdom of believers? When I make it about not getting out of the boat it is just me, my human nature, trying to suffocate his presence and power. This stands in the way of real spiritual growth. Like Peter’s wind. Jesus needed that wind, created it, used it to give powerful spiritual context to this apostle with “little faith.”

Peter doubted Jesus’ nature, and the very question circling all of the disciples. Is this man the Messiah?

The deity of Jesus Christ is eternal, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent and immutable.  The Jesus Christ who walked the waters of the Sea of Galilee.

Peter doubted his own nature. So, he asked Jesus for a command.

How does this make its way to sharing his Presence with someone?

Let’s go back to what Peter said the third time Jesus asked him if he loved him, after Jesus was resurrected…

Peter said, “You know that I love you.”

How does Jesus know I love Him? By taking on His nature and doing what he does. Not by works but by faith, in response to his persuasion.

My day should always start with this scene: I hear the water lapping up on the side of the boat. The rhythm of the living water.

My day should always start with this line: “Persuaded, Kathryn got down out of the boat and walked toward him.”

Can you hear the living water, its rhythm, human? Do you see him walking toward you?