Walking on Water

Walking on Water
Matthew 14: 22 -33

22 Immediately he made the disciples get into a boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. 23 And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, 24 but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. 
25 And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. 
26 But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. 
27 But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”
28 Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” 
29 He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. 
30 But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and, beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” 
31 Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

Today’s passage follows directly on the heels of the feeding of the five thousand, which we talked about last week. 

The disciples have just watched Jesus multiply a boy’s lunch into a banquet for a multitude. 

Though tired from a long day, they are riding high on a miracle. 

And immediately — the very next thing Matthew records — Jesus sends them out onto the water, into a storm, without Him, as Jesus ascends a nearby mountain to pray.

That order matters. 

The mountaintop always precedes the sea. 

Every experience of God’s provision is preparation for the next test of our trust. 

This passage is not primarily a story about a marvel performed on the water. 

It is a study in what it costs, and what it means, to leave the boat — the place of relative safety — and walk toward Christ across circumstances that cannot hold a person up.

We will walk through five movements in the text: 

the command to go alone
the storm and the Savior’s approach
the invitation to step out
the sinking and the saving
and the confession of faith

The Command to Go Alone (vs. 22-23)

“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, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray.”

Notice the force of the language: He “made” the disciples get into the boat. 

Some translations say “compelled.”  

Jesus, not the disciples, initiated the crossing. 

That detail matters, because in a moment, they will be in the middle of a lake, at night, in a storm they did not choose to enter — and yet they are exactly where obedience placed them.

Did you hear that last part? 

They were right were obedience had placed them.

We often assume that if we are following Jesus faithfully, the water will stay calm. 

Similarly, we often conclude that being in a difficult situation is somehow deserved, or the natural result or being outside God’s will or plan.

This text says otherwise. 

Life, as experience has also shown us, is not that simple, not that cut and dry.

Obedience does not always lead us away from harm - 
Obedience to Christ’s direction can sometimes lead directly into a storm. 

The disciples’ presence in that boat was not evidence of failure or of being outside God’s will. 

It was the result of following his command.

Meanwhile, Jesus goes up the mountain alone to pray. 

He sends them into the middle of the sea while He remains on a mountain, in communion with the Father. 

From a purely human vantage point, this looks like absence. 

It is not absence — it is intercession. 

The Christ who prays for us on the mountain is never unaware of what is happening to us on the water.

II. The Storm and the Savior's Approach (vs. 24-27)

“When evening came, he was there alone, but the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them. And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea.”

If I seem a little tired today, it’s for good reason.

Unintentionally, I woke up this morning around 2:30 am and have been awake ever since. 

Those hours - from 3 to 6 am are known as the fourth watch. 

It is usually the darkest part of the night. 

The disciples have been fighting this wind for the better 

part of the night — nine hours or more, by some estimates, straining at the oars, making little progress, exhausted. 

Jesus does not come at the first sign of trouble. 

He comes in the deepest, darkest part of the struggle, when their strength is spent and the outcome is uncertain.

This is a hard truth, but an honest one: God’s timing in our storms is rarely our timing. 

The delay is not neglect. 

It is often in the fourth watch — after we have exhausted our own resources — that we become able to recognize we need him at all.

And how does He come? 
 

Walking on the water. 

In the Old Testament, the sea is consistently the image of chaos, of forces beyond human control - Genesis 2, Job 9, Psalm 77, Isaiah 43. 

To walk on the sea is to walk on top of chaos itself, un-threatened by it. 

Matthew’s readers, steeped in that imagery, would have understood: this is not a nature miracle for its own sake.

This is a claim about who Jesus is. 

He is not at the mercy of the same forces battering the boat. 

He rules them.

Yet the disciples, seeing this, are “terrified” — the Greek is tarasso, the same word used elsewhere for deep inner turmoil. 

And they cry out, “It is a ghost!” 

The very sign meant to reassure them, at first, increases their fear, because they misread it. 

Illus. - person caught in a flood - prays for help; 
A boat comes by, then another, then a helicopter.
Each time he says: “No thanks. God will save me.”
Then the man drowns.
In heaven he complains that God failed to rescue him and God tells him - “I sent 2 boats and a helicopter.”

Sometimes the thing God sends to rescue us is the very thing we initially mistake for a threat.

We mistake God’s grace and power for something worse, because it comes to us in unexpected ways. 

Then comes the turning point of this whole passage: 

“Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.” 

In the Greek, “it is I” is ego eimi — the same phrase God uses of himself in Exodus 3:14 and that echoes throughout Isaiah 41–43 (“I, I am the Lord… fear not, for I am with you”). 

Jesus is not merely identifying himself as their friend and teacher. 

He is speaking with the self-identification of the God who parted the sea for Israel. 

The one walking toward them on the water is the same one who made a way through it centuries before.

III. The Invitation to Step Out (vs. 28-29)

“And Peter answered him, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’ He said, ‘Come.’”

Whatever else we say about Peter — and there is plenty to say — notice what he does here that no one else in the boat does. 

He asks to leave the boat. 

Eleven other men stay exactly where they are, and there is nothing recorded against them for doing so; staying in the boat was not sin. 

It is Peter alone, who asks for something more: not merely relief from the storm, but nearness to Christ, even if it means standing on the very water that terrifies him.

Peter’s request is telling: “Command me to come.” 

Peter does not ask permission to attempt something on his own initiative. 

He asks for a word that will make the impossible into obedience. 

He understands, rightly, that he cannot walk on water by his own courage or willpower. 

He can only walk on water in response to Christ’s command. 

Faith, biblically, is never self-generated confidence. 

It is a response to a word spoken by God.

And Jesus says one word: “Come.” 

Not a lecture. 

Not a guarantee of easy footing. 

Just the invitation.

“So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus.” 

This is the only verse in Scripture where a human being, other than Christ, walks on water. 

However briefly, however imperfectly, it happens. 
Peter’s later failure does not erase this fact: obeying the command, he does the impossible. 

Stepping out of the boat is not foolishness when the One calling you out is the One who commands the sea.

Obedience to the One Who is in complete control is never a mistake. 

IV. The Sinking and the Saving (vs. 30-31)

“But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, ‘Lord, save me.’ Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, ‘O you of little faith, why did you doubt?’”

The turning point of Peter’s experience is a shift of attention: “when he saw the wind.” 

Nothing about the wind changed between verse 29 and verse 30. 

It was there the whole time.

The wind never changed. 

Peter’s focus, did.  

Peter simply stopped looking at Jesus and started looking at the circumstance. 

The moment his gaze moved, his footing gave way.

This is the plainest lesson in the whole account, and the most searching one for us: we do not sink because the storm gets worse. 

We sink because we look at the storm instead of at Christ. 

The water bore Peter’s weight perfectly well as long as his eyes were fixed on the one who called him. 

The physics of the situation never changed. 

What changed was where his faith was directed.

And yet look carefully at what Peter does next:

As a life-long fisherman, he does not swim for the boat. 

He cries out, “Lord, save me.” 

Even sinking, even in the middle of his own failure of nerve, his instinct is to call on Christ. 

That is not the prayer of a man with no faith. 

Jesus does not call him a man of “no faith,” but of “little faith” — oligopistos, a word Jesus uses elsewhere for the disciples’ persistent, growing-but-incomplete trust. 

Little faith is still faith. 

It is enough to cry out. 

“Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him.” 

Before the rebuke comes the rescue. 

Christ does not wait for Peter to sort out his doubt before extending help.

He catches him mid-sink, and the correcting question comes afterward, hand still gripping him. 

This is the pattern of grace throughout the Gospels: 
- Jesus does not require perfect faith as a precondition for His help. 

He meets a little faith with a steadfast hand, and only then teaches.

V. The Confession of Faith (vs. 32-33)

“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.’”

The storm does not end when Peter starts walking, and it does not end when he starts sinking. 

It ends only when Jesus gets into the boat. 

The safest place was never on the shore, or in the absence of a storm around them — it was the presence of Christ with them.

And the response of the whole boat is worship: 

“Truly you are the Son of God.” 

This is the fullest confession of Christ’s identity Matthew has recorded up to this point in his Gospel. 

It takes both the walking and the sinking — both Peter’s triumph and his failure — held together in the same event, for the whole boat to arrive at that confession. 

God is often at work to build our faith not only through the moments we succeed in trusting Him, but through the moments we fail and are caught anyway.

Conclusion: Stepping Out Today

Every one of us lives somewhere between the boat and the water. 

Some of you are in the boat right now, exhausted from rowing against a wind you did not choose, wondering where Christ is in your fourth watch, in your darkest hours. 

Hear this: 


He sees you from the mountain, and He is already on His way, even if the timing is not yours to control.

Some of you are being called, right now, to step out of the boat — into a decision, a calling, a risk of obedience that has no natural footing under it, where the only thing that will hold you up is the word of Christ that sent you there. 
The question this text puts to us is not “will there be wind?” 

There will always be wind. 

The question is whether we will keep our eyes on the One Who called us out, or turn our focus to the size of the waves.

And some of you are sinking right now — not because your faith was fake, but because it is little, and it faltered the moment you looked away. 

To you, this text has good news that outweighs the rebuke: 




The hand of Christ reaches for the sinking before the lecture ever begins. 

He does not wait at the boat for you to swim back on your own strength. 




He comes to wherever you are going under, and lifts you up.

The invitation of this passage has never been to admire Peter’s twelve steps or to dwell on his failure at the thirteenth. 

It is to hear the same voice that spoke over the sea now speak to us: 

“Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.” 

And then, to whatever water He is calling us toward: 

To trust Him. 

To obey Him. 




And step out.