Last night at bible study someone quoted the title of a book and the phrase 'If you want to walk on water you've got to get out of the boat' really resonated with me, so I thought it may resonate with others. After a little treasure hunt on Google – what did we ever do without the funnily named search engine? – I found this sermon:
(Scripture: Matt. 14: 22-33; Hebrews 12:1-3) :
(Scripture: Matt. 14: 22-33; Hebrews 12:1-3) :
In his book Healing of Memories David Seamands tells us that at the end of WWII, the Japanese government was faced with a massive problem. There were thousands of Japanese soldiers in the mountains and the jungles of the South Pacific islands who would not come out of hiding, surrender their arms, and return to a life of peace. They fully believed surrender would mean either torture or instant death.
Finally, the Japanese Emperor made a speech explaining the situation and pleading with his men to come home. The speech was broadcast by radio and also recorded, and was repeatedly boomed toward the mountain caves and the jungles by loudspeaker.
After some years, it was assumed that all the living had been accounted for. However, it was not until March of 1974 that the last soldier finally came out of hiding, 29 years after the war was over! This man wasted 29 years of his life in hiding! When they asked the man, now in his sixties, why he had waited, he said it had taken him that long to get over his fears.
Imagine being trapped for 29 years! Being trapped not by an invading army, not by enemy
threats, but by your own fear! Twenty-nine years in hiding will rob you of a lot of life and many dreams. Today some of us are also being robbed of our lives and our dreams because of our fears. We’re locked in patterns and cycles of living because we have a certain comfort zone that we don’t want to leave. Peter’s comfort zone was the boat.
The truth is that we all have our comfort zones. We’re not even aware of what some of these comfort zones are. But over years we’ve been programmed to do life and ministry in particular ways. And some of these patterns can be the biggest obstacles to fulfilling our God-given dreams.
One of the major barriers holding us back from dreaming God’s dreams is our reluctance to get out of our comfort zones.
The amazing thing is that, like that Japanese soldier, many times we would rather face the pain of staying the same than risk the uncertainty of change. Yet, if you’re walking with God, chances are he is leading you to change. God is leading many of us to dream again! He wants to get us out of a self-made prison.
We think God wants us to dream simply so that He can get some big job done. No, He wants us to dream because what He wants to do in us is just as important as what he wants to do through us!
But one of the dangers is that we can come to the place where we think we need to take a risk for the sake of taking a risk. We may want to impress God or even someone else. As a result, we do something daring for the sole purpose of overcoming our fears Risk is not a virtue on its own.
God calls each of us to use our particular gift and to employ our particular resources to be part of a much larger drama. The part we play may not seem like a “big deal.” It may be that the Lord is calling us to lead a small group or a ministry team; God may be challenging us to teach a Sunday school class or witness to a neighbor; perhaps ours is a ministry of prayer or sharing Christ with
a lost person. Or go on this Habitant for Humanity trip. Whatever your God-given dream is, it is to fulfill God’s dreams, not to appear courageous.
“We all want progress—The problem in the Church is we just don’t want to change!” Some new pastors who are in a new pastorate hear the congregation say, “We want you to lead us and help us grow.” But what they don’t hear said is, “. . . but don’t change anything substantial in the church, because we like it just the way it is!” Healthy churches, however, are always changing and growing and facing new challenges. That’s real living!
You’ve allowed the circumstances of life to occupy your thinking, through fear or unbelief or prejudicial thinking; or being chained to a painful past, or not seeing others as God does, or having self-centered goals for your life, or not seeing how God is actually at work in your life right now; or simply not praying as you should. All of these are barriers that you need to remove, so you can be free in Christ. Do whatever it is that he’s called you to do.
This sermon title comes from the John Ortberg book, If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get out of the Boat –that is what needs to happen.
Small children grow by leaps and bounds because they are willing to take risks and to make mistakes. They learn to walk largely by falling down and getting back up. They learn to talk by saying words incorrectly and having someone correct them. They are willing to ask 100 times a day, “Why?”
As we grow older, we become less willing to try new things. We fear making mistakes. We have fallen down too many times. We have failed, and we have felt the pain of failing. We have been hurt by our mistakes. We have learned to love our comfort zones!
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