Wind, Waves, and a Hand That Never Lets Go

Introduction

In Matthew 14:22-33, Jesus walking on water meets his disciples during a storm on the Sea of Galilee, and Peter walks on water too — until fear pulls his eyes from Jesus. Revd. Paul Cowley MBE preaches that obedience never exempts us from storms; the only real command is to keep your eyes on Jesus, whatever the wind and waves.

The scriptures, the scripture last week and the scripture this week, I think, are about trust. Last week was about putting what we’ve got, and I mentioned whatever that is, is always enough for Jesus, and we give it to him, and he multiplies it like he did with the bread and the fish.

This week, the scripture is not about just giving him what we’ve got. It’s going a little bit deeper, and it’s a little bit harder, but it’s still about trust. For me, all the scriptures seem to be about trust, because that’s what I’ve struggled with most of my life: trusting people, trusting events, trusting anything really, always thinking I’m going to be let down or someone’s going to move away from me, because that’s what happened in my childhood, and if you’re not careful, then that continues through adolescence and into adulthood, and that’s what happened to me until I met Christ, who resolved that issue for me. Almost. So tonight goes a little bit deeper. It’s what are we going to do when things get a little bit harder? Trusting him when, I don’t know, the skies are overcast and the dark and the gloomy and the thunderous, the winds are high and the waves are starting to rise. Where this scripture is set, on the Sea of Galilee, it’s a very calm lake if you’ve ever been to it. It’s amazing. I’ve actually ran around it. It’s gorgeous, but it can become really troubled, and the scriptures tell us about that, and the reason for that: it’s almost in a bowl, and the winds come off the mountains and they come down and they pick the sea up, and some of the waves can be 30, 40 foot high. So that’s the setting that this stuff is set into. So what are we going to do when it gets into that situation, not a calm, nice sea that we can just, or a lake that we can walk across or sail across or swim across?

I mentioned last week that I’ve probably spent more time in prison than most criminals, but I did put a caveat there. It’s because I work in prison, not that I’ve committed so many crimes. And I’ve worked as a chaplain in two of, I think, London’s toughest prisons for quite a while, a young offenders’ institute and a male senior prison. And I’ve also established a few charities that work with men and women leaving prison, or the homeless, or trying to help people reestablish their lives when they’ve messed up, and really they don’t want to be known for the rest of their lives for the one mistake that they made, and they’re trying to change. And those of us who are slightly cynical, like myself sometimes, most people are trying to change in prison, I can assure you. I spent 28 years in different prisons and worked with lots of men and women, and most of them regret what they did and are trying to change. So I’ve established a few charities around that sort of work, and that’s why I’ve been involved in prisons for most of my ministry, really. And I’ve had the privilege of walking alongside these men and women when they try and rebuild their lives together, or reunite with their families, or try and get their kids back out of care, or try and hold down a gainful employment in work, which is not always easy because people don’t really give them a chance. So that, for me, has been a privilege, and I’ve learned quite a lot during those years. And like I said last time, for those of you who don’t know me, my name is Paul Cowley. I’m an ordained Church of England minister. But like I said, most of my ministry has been outside of the church walls, not inside. A few inside, but mostly outside, walking with the people I’ve just mentioned. And what I’ve discovered and learned during that time is an immense amount from people who are homeless, destitute, wealthy, poor. I’ve learned a lot. And I think whether you’re in prison, or whether you’re running a business, large or small, or raising a family, trying to bring the kids up, being a mom or a dad, or enjoying retirement, there’ll always be storms. They’re always going to be there, regrettably, but Jesus tells us that there’s always going to be storms. And storms don’t seem to make appointments. They simply just turn up unannounced, uninvited, and they hit you face on. And we have to try and deal with them. And what this scripture is trying to tell us, I think, for me, is how to deal with that. And the encouraging thing, I think, in this passage is that the disciples are exactly where Jesus told them to be. So they weren’t disobedient. They weren’t outside of what he’d asked them to do. They were doing exactly what he told them to do. And yet, they still get caught in this storm. They’re still scared. They still think they’re going to die.

Following Jesus certainly doesn’t promise an easier life. I’ve not read that anywhere in the scriptures. And he never said that it would be an easy life if you followed him. I’ve never read that either. But what he does promise is his presence. He will never leave us nor forsake us even till the end of time. That’s a long time. So the promise is that he’s always going to be there.

So I’ve got four thoughts that we could maybe ponder this week and have a think, maybe dive into the scriptures if you do that, or talk to one another, or just think yourself about this scripture. So four thoughts that might help us understand it a bit more. Number one: obedience doesn’t keep us out of the storms of life. Whether you do your Bible study, you pray every day, you read your scriptures, you come to church, you do everything you’re supposed to do, you’re still going to get storms. If that comes as a surprise, I’m really sorry to be the one to tell you. But they are. They’re going to come. Jesus told the disciples to get into the boat. They obeyed and got caught in a storm. So they were only doing what he told them to do, behaving themselves.

Sometimes we assume that hardships mean that we’ve taken the wrong turn or we’ve done something wrong or we just didn’t get it right. Not always. Sometimes you’re right in the middle of God’s will, doing exactly what he wants you to do, and the wind starts to rise, the sky is starting to dark, and the storm comes.

During my military career, I spent almost 17 years in the army. It taught me a lot of things. But one thing it did teach me is you can’t choose the weather. But what I was told by Sergeant Major one day: you can choose how you respond to the weather — to get on with it, to adapt, to change, to seek help, to get more resource, to do whatever you need to do. But don’t whinge about the weather, get on with it, because you can’t do anything about that. And I think faith is much the same thing. We have a faith, but sometimes we need to adapt, we need to change, we need to ask for help, we need prayer, we need resources — whatever it is. In this scripture, I think God’s saying, I’m here to help you with that. So faith is much the same: choose what you do with it. Number two: Peter was the only one to get wet. I like that. Peter was also the only one who walked on water. Nobody else did. They all stayed in the boat.

I’d rather be Peter. Yes, he sank. Yes, he was scared. And yes, he was probably terrified, I bet. But because of all that he pushed himself, he went out of his comfort zone, he experienced something that the others didn’t. And I like that. I think it’s brave. Now, as a visiting pastor, I’m not going to test the congregation, but I could say, put your hands up if you’d get out the boat, and let’s see how many put your hand up. Or put your hands up if you’d stay in the boat, see how many put your hands up for that one. Oh, there’s a naval man at the back there. He would get out the boat, I’m sure. Or I might say to you, are you not sure whether you’d get out the boat or not? I think that’s a really honest answer, because I would say I’m not sure. I want to think, standing here in front of you, I’d be out the boat in seconds. I don’t know. I’d have to wait and see. But he’s the only one that walked on water, so I’d rather be a Peter and be scared.

I’ve met so many men and women leaving prison who were terrified of taking that first step back into society. Almost frozen, I’ve seen people at the gate — when the gates open, they’ve got their bag, and they’re on their way out, and they stop, frozen, solid, terrified to take that step into freedom. The first step is always the hardest step. It’s often the most simplest step, like getting out of the boat or putting your foot through the gate. But it’s hard. It’s easy to speak about and it’s easy to read about.

Many years ago now, during my military career, one of the things I did a lot of was adventure training. I became an expert in that sort of stuff — canoeing, climbing, skiing, all that sort of thing. And it was a great part of my life. And as part of that time, I led an expedition to climb Mount Kenya. Me and another sergeant, Scooby, his name was, we took 10 young soldiers, and we were off to Africa to climb Mount Kenya, which was really exciting. And it should have been a real adventure, which we thought it would be, but it turned into a tragedy, because my friend Scooby, the other sergeant, died. He fell off the mountain top, left the 10 men up there. I was down at the bottom of it, and I had to go up and try and get them. He fell — he made a genuine mistake — fell 800 foot and died.

I remember the shock when I got to him and the grief and wondering, where on earth God was in all this stuff? This was meant to be fun. It was meant to be an adventure. It was 10 young soldiers. It was me and my mate. We were climbing. We were both very good at that sort of stuff. And then this happens. And that shock really hit me, to a point where I took his harness off him, and through sheer adrenaline, started to climb up this cliff, which was completely out of my skill factor, and out of my comfort zone, completely.

And Amanda, my wife, in my autobiography that was written, Thief, Prisoner, Soldier, Priest, describes it in great detail of what we did. I haven’t got the time to do that, but she wrote this extraordinary encounter out that I had, stuck on this mountain, 800 foot up, trying to get to these lads. And I couldn’t get to them. I didn’t have the equipment, because I’d just run up this mountain with sheer adrenaline to try and get them off. And like I said, I was completely out of my depth, scared, and I thought I would die. In fact, at the point when I was on a ledge about 800 foot up, and the lads were the other side of what’s called a nose, an outcrop of rock that I couldn’t get around because I didn’t have the equipment.

It started to rain, and it started to get dark, and it gets cold in Africa at night. And I remember leaning into the rock face and putting my face on it and saying, God, I don’t want to die, you need to help me, and I don’t know what to do. Because if you’ve ever climbed a tree, it’s really easy to get up. It’s not easy to get back down again, that’s for sure. And I was stuck, and I was scared, and I put my head on the rock and I said, God, help me. And the next moment I felt a tap on my shoulder, and I turned, and there was a young man there. I can still see his face now. He didn’t speak to me, but he had the stuff that I needed. They’re called pitons, little nails that you hammer in. And he hammered me and he secured me in. He went round me, he went round the rock face. He abseiled the 10 soldiers down to the ground. He came back, and he abseiled me down to the ground, and I’ve never seen him since.

I checked when I got there, because I was the senior soldier in charge of the expedition. There was no one on Mount Kenya climbing. You have to have a permit. There was no civilian people. There was no military people. There was absolutely no one except the 12 of us. Now, where that person came from, that’s up to you to describe or for you to think about.

I know he was an angel. And he saved my life, and he saved those ten soldiers. And I believe that God sent that person when I cried out for help. Whether others can explain that in a different way, to me that’s not the point. I don’t really care. What matters to me is God met me in the middle of my storm. And he’s done that on numerous occasions that I won’t bore you with. But he has. He turns up when you cry out. Amen. Amen.

Had I stayed where it was safe and didn’t get involved in that, again, God only knows what would happen. But I pushed myself, like Peter did, beyond his comfort zone as he stepped out of the boat. Peter never discovered that Jesus could hold him above the waves until he stepped out of the boat. The thing is, sometimes we pray for God to give us a direction and pointers and give us some idea where we’re supposed to go and where our boat is supposed to sail. But if you have your boat tied up in the harbour, it ain’t going to go anywhere. You have to untether it, you have to drop the sails, and it has to set off, and you have no idea where it’s going. But once you get going and there’s wind in the sails, then you’ll get some direction, then you’ll get orientation. But you have to cut loose. You have to step out of the boat.

And sometimes the greatest moments of faith are found not in safety, but in obedience, by doing something that God is asking you to do, and if you’re scared of doing it. Number three: keep your eyes on Jesus. Peter only began to sink when he took his eyes off Jesus. That’s what the scripture tells us. While he was focused on him, he was cool. He was walking on the water with Jesus. He panicked and looked around and started to sink. You know, the waves hadn’t changed. Jesus hadn’t moved. But Peter’s focus had changed, from the Lord to the water — started to sink. From where we’re going, to the circumstances that we find ourselves in, it gets perilous. Corrie ten Boom once wrote this: look around you and you will be distressed. Look within you and you’ll be depressed. Look at Christ and you’ll find rest. I really like that. It’s simple and it’s easy to remember. Fourth and final point: Jesus reaches out immediately.

Matthew says in the scripture that Bill read for us, immediately Jesus reached out his hand. Immediately. Immediately, not after a lecture, not after a talking to, not after a Bible study, not after a church service, not after I told you so. Immediately. And I love that. That’s called grace.

And I’ve seen that countless times on people in prison. People think they’ve gone too far. That’s the end of it. They’ve got nothing left. And all Christ does is say to them, give me what you’ve got and we’ll work it out together. I will always be there, even till the end of time. So perhaps, Peter — or perhaps Jesus isn’t asking you now to walk on water this week. Maybe he’ll be a bit more gentle with you than that. Perhaps he’s simply asking you to take that one step out of the boat, that one step through the door, or that one conversation that you’ve been meaning to have but you haven’t had it. That one act of forgiveness, that person that keeps coming up, or is living in your head rent-free, or whatever it is.

Or maybe it’s that decision that you’ve wanted to make, you feel you should make, but you haven’t made it, and you’re procrastinating on it. Or maybe it’s that one prayer that you know you should pray, but you haven’t prayed it yet. Or maybe it’s that new one beginning, where you just know things are going to change, but you’re scared to step out of the boat. Faith rarely begins with giant leaps and massive steps and everything like that. It starts usually with an obedient small step, one after another after another after another, like climbing a mountain, just one foot in front, one to the other, all the time, and you will get there. So, final thought before we pray.

I think now I’ve spent years around men and women who have convinced themselves that they’re finished, they’re done. Even with some young people, I’ve experienced that as well, that they’ve got nothing left. Peter reminds me that the miracle wasn’t that he never sank. The miracle was that Jesus never let him down. That’s the main point for me. So whatever storm you’re facing this week or you’re in the midst of it now, whatever fear is keeping you from stepping out of the boat or taking that chance, and I’m speaking to myself as I say this, we have to keep our eyes on Jesus. We have to keep our eyes on Jesus. Otherwise, we will start to sink. Because the safest place in the world isn’t always a calm sea. It’s wherever Christ is. And again, he tells us that we’ll always have him. He will always be with us. It’s wherever Christ is. That’s the safest place to be. So try this week, maybe, keeping your eyes on him, especially if you’re going through one of the storms that will come. Amen. Please remain seated.