Stepping Out of the Boat: Faith, Fear, and Trust in Jesus

Shawn Tyler: Good morning. My name is Shawn Tyler and I work in the Bible Department and teach missions and with Mission Link here we are hosting a guest speaker today, Jon Ganier, father of four, husband for 24 years and missionary to Ukraine for 11.
During that 11-year stint, he six years overlapped with the war that's been going on over there.
And that war changed his ministry a little bit.
He found himself in a position of starting the first ever chaplaincy program for the Ukrainian army.
And because of him being there so close to the front,
ended up spending a little bit of time briefly as a correspondent for Fox News concerning the war.
In 2020, he came back to the United States and became a director for Contact Missions,
and that's the mission agency he served under.
And he is here today looking for people who are missional-minded,
who would be interested in serving in a short-term trip, internship,
or even long-term service and missions in Europe.
And so he has a table over in the sub after this chapel time.
You can come over and visit with them there.
Please welcome Jon Ganier.
Jon Ganier: Well, it's good to be here with you guys.
And I want to tell you guys a little bit about myself.
I was told when I needed to come here and preach that you guys like a good story.
I was also told that I had 15 minutes.
And if you know anything about people from the South, we like to spin a good yarn.
And since I live in Tennessee, I've picked up this skill of spinning a good yarn.
But raise your hand if you have a friend.
No, okay, I was just checking to make sure your arms worked out.
Hopefully you all have friends.
Some of you, though, kind of went into a depression there.
But raise your hand if you have a friend that whenever you hang out with this friend,
you feel like there's a good chance that you might be facing death.
I'm surprised to see some of the ladies raising their hands
Women, you need to make better choices about who you hang out with
Young men, almost all of them should be raising their hands
Well, I have a good friend like that
His name is Wade
And Wade and I love to go fishing
And so we lived up in Iowa
We lived on the Mississippi River
And if you don't know anything about the Mississippi River
It's a really crazy river
In fact, until the turn of the century
the Mississippi River was actually rapids. It moves very quickly. It's one of the quickest
rivers, fastest moving rivers in the world. And so hundreds and hundreds of people die
on the Mississippi every year because they get sucked under the water and it does not let you
go regardless of having on a life jacket. And so we wanted to go fishing on the Mississippi
and there are little backwater sloughs where you can take a small boat. And so I asked my friend,
I said, can I borrow your boat? And he said, where are you taking it? Knowing that I was probably
going to say the Mississippi. And he said, it'll be fine to take this boat, but you have to stay
on the little backwater sloughs. And so I think we have a picture here. I actually found a picture
of the exact boat. And I don't want to call this a boat. It's really more of a raft with lawn chairs,
But it's Iowa, so it is what it is.
So this is the boat that we took on to the mighty Mississippi.
And he said, whatever you do, don't take it into the main channel.
And so we got in the boat and we were fishing and we were fishing and we were fishing.
We were catching nothing.
And as you know, the fish like to hang out around the big limestone rocks.
And so the rocks were jetting out.
And so we thought, we'll go around the point of that and we'll start catching fish.
And so we went around the point of that and we started coming upstream a little bit or downstream a little bit on it.
And we realized the next shore was Illinois.
We were in the main channel of the Mississippi River.
Places where thousands of people drowned all the time.
And it started to rain.
And the waves started kicking up.
There were about five foot swells.
So the boat was jumping up and splashing down, and we were terrified.
We started to run the little motor, trying to get it to go upstream against the strongest current in the world,
and we were going nowhere.
We were paddling with our hands, and we put the life jackets on, and I thought to myself,
it's going to be really hard to explain to Shane that I lost his boat.
We thought we were going to die.
And it gives me comfort when we read our passage today to know that even professional fishermen,
who is in our passage today, the disciples, got a little scared, just like we were on that Mississippi River.
And I was thinking as I was coming here about this question about having a friend who almost always gets you killed.
I wonder if the disciples thought about Jesus that way.
Like every time we hang out with this guy, something crazy is happening.
And something crazy indeed has happened in our passage today.
We're going to be reading in Matthew 14.
So if you have your cell phones there or your Bibles, if you're super holy, break out like the one with the study notes.
But if you just have your cell phones there, open up to Matthew 14.
We're going to read it together.
That's my messages, not my Bible.
But we're going to read it together.
And I want to explain what has happened right before this, right before Jesus walks on water.
He does something called the feeding of the 5,000.
Amazing thing.
But it says immediately he commanded his disciples to get into the boats.
Why immediately?
And so if you look at the other passages, you look in John where the same story is recorded, we see this written.
It's really interesting.
It says, after feeding the 5,000, John 14 and 6, 14 and 15, it says, record says, when the people saw the signs that he had done, they said, this indeed is the prophet who is to come into the world.
Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force and make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
I thought this was really applicable to our culture today.
Just like today, people want a political liberator, and they are completely missing the kingdom picture.
Their subjugation in that physical world, then and now, has blinded them to the shackles of sin that are firmly affixed to our ankles.
and now we read our story in Matthew
Matthew 14 verse 22 immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him
to the other side while he dismissed the crowds and after he had dismissed the crowds let's see
I got it right here boom after he had dismissed the crowds he went up on a mountain by himself
to pray. When evening came, he was there alone. But the boat by this time was a long way off from
the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them. And on the fourth watch of the night,
he came to them walking on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea,
they were terrified and said, it's a ghost. And they cried out in fear. But immediately,
Jesus spoke to them, saying, take heart, it is I, do not be afraid.
And Peter answered him, Lord, if it is you, tell me to come to you on the water.
And he said, come.
So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus.
But when he saw the wind, he was afraid.
And he began sinking and he cried out, Lord, save me.
Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him saying, oh, you of little faith, why did you doubt?
And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased and those in the boat worshiped him saying, truly, you are the son of God.
how many of you have ever seen the show um it was a show about a crab fisherman up in alaska
do you guys remember this show these guys would get tossed overboard some guy died
on the show what was that show called do you guys remember deadliest catch that's right
I think of these guys as really tough guys
But when we think of the disciples
I want you to think of like those guys
On Deadliest Catch
These are real tough guys
It was not easy being a fisherman
More importantly
They get into this boat
And they sail off
When I was a kid we had like these things called flannel graphs
Do you guys know what that is?
Okay so
I just reached my over 40 audience
we had these things called flannel graphs and the teacher would have these little paper uh
paper fabric things that she could put up on the board and they were images of people and stuff
like that maybe you guys had cartoons or something like that to show you the bible story but whenever
they portrayed this story they had like a lake scene it was very beautiful blue water sunshine
in the sky and then they put jesus walking all down the water and then peter walking toward jesus
and it was always, I always thought, what's the big deal? Then I read the story and I'm shocked.
It says here in this text, it says in the Greek, it says they were many stadia. Stadia is the word
we use for stadium. If we look over in John, they're actually three and a half miles out into
the middle of a seven mile Lake of Galilee, three and a half miles out. It also says it was the
third watch. So it is about, or the fourth watch, it's about three o'clock in the morning.
When is it darkest? About three o'clock in the morning. So at three o'clock in the morning,
three and a half miles out with giant waves that are crashing over the side of the boat,
and you can't move the boat anywhere. And then you see a man coming toward you on the water.
Do you think any of us might yell, it's a ghost?
I think we would.
I think we would be absolutely terrified.
But this story is not just about the fear of these disciples in the dead of the night in the middle of the Sea of Galilee, three and a half miles from shore.
It's not about their fear.
This is a turning point in the ministry of Jesus and the faith of the disciples.
You see, true understanding of who Jesus is leads us to action, it leads us to trust, and it leads everyone to worship when we truly understand who his is.
We know that faith requires action.
James said in his letter, he said, faith without works is dead.
He goes on to say, even the demons believe that God is one and they shudder.
Faith without works is dead.
Faith is practice by our actions.
Peter got out of the boat because he believed in Jesus more than he did the boat.
Can you imagine these disciples?
They're on the edge of the boat, and they're seeing Jesus out there, and they're screaming,
it's a ghost!
And Peter's like, and Jesus is like, peace, brothers.
And then they say, and Peter's like, if it's you, Lord, call me out on the water.
And Jesus is like, come.
For some reason, Jesus to me is like Bruce Lee.
you know and and peter starts to climb over the side of this boat now can you imagine the other
11 disciples as peter is climbing over the side of the boat they're like dude what are you doing
get back in the boat man can't you see the waves get back in the boat and peter's climbing over
the side of the boat because peter believed more in jesus than he did the boat
it must have seemed crazy to them but often when we act on our faith
to the rest of the world it looks absolutely insane the very fact that you guys are here
i imagine you have friends that believe what you're doing is absolutely crazy
but that's what people think when you get out of the boat many people see peter's loss of faith
and the fact that he starts sinking and they think oh peter what is your problem but you know what
there's only two people in all of history that have walked on water and one of them was god
and the other one was Peter.
I don't know about you guys,
I want to be a Peter.
I want to be the guy who gets out of the boat,
who takes big risks,
who do things that other people think are crazy
because I trust Jesus more than I trust the boat.
Faith is that moment when we have more trust
in Jesus' ability
than a lack of belief
in our own ability.
That moment when his strength eclipses our inability.
Let me tell you, friends, there's a lot of messages out there saying that you are enough
and you're not.
And you know what?
That's awesome because we know who is enough.
It's Jesus Christ, the Lord.
Amen?
That was awful, dude.
I'm from the South.
Amen?
That's right
The question is
What are your lives saying?
What are your actions saying about who you put your faith in?
When people look at your life
Because your life is preaching something
It is preaching
Your faith
When people look at your life
And your actions
What faith do they believe you have?
Do they believe you have faith in yourself?
Do they believe you have faith in your job?
Do they believe you have faith in your education?
Do they believe you have faith in your family or your upbringing or your money?
Or do they believe you have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the man who walks on water, the man who died on the cross,
the man who rose again and gave resurrection to all humanity for those who would choose him?
Friends, I don't want to be in any of those other groups.
I want to be in the group that has said Jesus is where my trust is.
Jesus is where my ability is.
My inability, yes, it's right here, but he's got me covered because he is capable of all things.
Amen?
Faith requires trust.
It was not too far into Peter's walk on the Sea of Galilee where the waves started crashing up on his legs
and the wind started blowing in his hair.
And he thought, I'm cooked.
Not let him cook, I'm cooked.
I remember when I was getting ready to go to Ukraine I had to go to an intensive Russian
language school and about three weeks into this Russian language school we were studying Russian
from nine in the morning till two in the afternoon and then we had three hours of Russian homework at
night I mean my brain could barely function my wife is passing the course with flying colors
I was the worst student in the class
and I called my mother one night
and I was just shook
I just failed a major test
and I said mom I don't think I can do this
and she said like a normal mother
yes you can
yes you can do it
and I said mom I'm the worst student
they don't even think I can pass out of the course
I don't think I have enough to do this
and my mother who's a believer said
baby that's where God
wants you
I'm not enough
those points when we see our
insufficiency is where we get to put our trust
in Jesus Christ
faith in Jesus Christ
results in salvation
and Jesus Christ salvation results
in worship
after these men
get back in the boat, Jesus and Peter, the storm dies down. And what does everybody in the boat do?
They worship him. They worship him. Friends,
if you live your lives
with faith that trusts,
if you live your lives
acting on that trust,
people are going to see Jesus
and they're going to worship him.
I'm going to finish with a prayer
and let you guys go.
I want to let you know
that the SYNC conference,
or I'm sorry,
Mission Sink, we're going to be over in the, what's the building called?
I was going to say hub.
In the sub building, I've got a table out there.
I'd love to talk to you about what it takes to become a missionary in Europe.
If you have questions about Ukraine, I'd love to talk to you about those also
and just talk about what God is doing in you guys' life.
So come and see me.
I've got a bunch of gifts and fun stuff to take too.
So let's pray.
Dear Heavenly Father, we come before you recognizing that we have not always put our trust in you.
We come here recognizing that we have often put our sufficiency in who we are and what we have and what we do.
We ask that you forgive us for the ways in which we have not sought your face first,
the ways in which we have not cried out to you, Jesus, save us.
I pray, Lord, that if there is anyone here today that has not turned their life over to Jesus Christ,
to you, Lord, and said, I want you to take charge of my life. I pray that you would draw them to
yourself today so that they might make you the Lord and Savior of their life. We thank you,
Heavenly Father, for all you've done for us and the ways you've loved us. And we pray that you
hold us and keep us throughout our days so that our actions, that our words, and that our thoughts
would honor and glorify you. We pray this all in the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
You guys are free to go.
Thank you.