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Sunday, August 10, 2008

Scripture: Matthew 14:22-33

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

During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. "It's a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear.

But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid."

"Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water."

"Come," he said.

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

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

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

How does one walk on water? Before kids, one of things Bob and I would do on our vacations was to go deep sea fishing. One particular trip everything started out okay, no bad weather reports. We fished for bait in the bay, everything was calm and okay. We then headed out to the Gulf and it wasn’t long that everything wasn’t okay. There were swells everywhere. The weather report had not mentioned swells, bad weather, nothing. Yet there they were big ones, higher than the boat. Bob and the crew were okay. But not me, I was turning green and ready to get rid of everything. I am so short, I could not see the horizon for the waves. Bob and the crew kept saying keep your eyes on the horizon and you will be okay. Hah, what horizon? I did everything I could to keep calm. Frankly, if I could have walked on water that day I would have walked right over the waves to the beach. It was that bad. Well, of course I couldn’t and I can’t. Looking at our passage we see that Jesus walked on the water to them, and Peter attempted to walk on water himself.

Even though Peter did not make it very far he did try didn’t he. John Ortberg wrote a book called If you want to walk on water, you have to get out of the boat. That’s true; the first step you have to make is to get out of the boat. That is what Peter did; he got out of the boat and headed toward Jesus. How was he able to do that? I think he had a vision of something even if ever so briefly of something so powerful that so many of us wish we could have. He had a vision of Jesus and Jesus’ power. Remember the rest of them were afraid and thought Jesus was a ghost. Not Peter he saw Jesus for who Jesus was and wanted to touch Jesus. That power gave him the ability to do something he as a human could not do. And I think that is what happens when we get a vision of Jesus, and his power. It empowers us to things that would otherwise be improbable.

Imagine with me if you will; What if instead of calling it walking on water, what if we called it getting out of our comfort zones, to risk something for Jesus? Imagine that instead of getting out of the boat it was getting out of our comfort zones. I know I know you are probably sitting there thinking, now lets not go there Preacher. But if you look at your life, you have probably in many different ways and times had to get out of your comfort zone and risked in some way. When you started to school you left the comfort zone of your home. When you left elementary school for middle school, you left that comfort zone to the chaos and craziness of middle school year. And from what became the comfort zone of middle school, if it can be comfortable you moved onto the High School where it wasn’t so comfortable. And in four years you left that comfort zone of High School for either college, technical school or a job a world where you had to be the responsible person. And of course there is always this one, you chose to leave the comfort zone of your family to date and then marry someone. And then in comfort zone of being a couple you may have brought in a child or children. Perhaps you have moved, you left one comfort zone for another. Perhaps you changed jobs you left that comfort zone. Perhaps you went through a divorce. Or maybe you have had a n illness or hospitalization that led to your having to leave your comfort zone. The list could go on of the different comfort zones you and I have had to leave for what was uncomfortable and different. You may have done it with fear and trepidation or maybe excitement a variety of feelings, but you did it.

So what I hope you hear is that even if it is difficult, you and I can walk on water, get out the boat or our comfort zones. You have done it and are able to do it even now. I don’t know why it is though when it comes to church, we are less likely and willing to leave our comfort zones. Maybe it is because of all the change there is in our lives we want one place that is the same and is a comfort zone for ourselves. Maybe we expect or hope the church to be that. We then don’t like it when we have to get out of our comfort zones at church.

Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill in Seattle, warns about the dangers of comfort in his book Confessions of a Reformission Rev. He diagnoses the dangers of comfort in a very direct and disturbing way for many of us who find ourselves going through the motions in ministry.

“The comfort zone is the place a church commonly falls into once they learn how to survive…At this point, the propensity is for the church to settle in, accept its size, and slip into a mode of maintenance. At some point, the people will move away or die, others will get bored, and slowly the church will begin a cycle of decline unless it intentionally reinvents itself missionally to continue to grow by taking risks in an effort to reach lost people for Jesus.”

Sadly, this appears to be the place that most churches in America find themselves. Awash in a sea of people, churches have become closer to country clubs than hospitals, and slipped into the comfort zone. Statistics bear out this reality in harsh numbers that report that 70-90% of churches in America are either on a plateau or declining. Frank Page, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, recently confessed he believed that most of the SBC church will die a slow death over the next twenty years—dying of “cancer of the comfort”.

But what if the reality is that church is suppose to be a place where we are strengthened empowered to be able to get out of our comfort zones to be able to risk something for Jesus. What if church is the place where we catch that vision that glimpse of Jesus that is greater than anything else and empowers us. I am just going to let that soak in a little bit.

This may feel like I am stepping on toes, but just imagine with me, you come into church and there in the pew you like to sit in, sits a family looking lost and a little anxious, what do you do? Do you stand there and say? That’s my pew you will have to move. You might, but if you are saying yes to Jesus and being willing to step out of your comfort zone, you greet them, welcome them, introduce yourself and sit with them if there is room, or elsewhere if not. A new person moves in next door to you, what do you do? If you are stepping out of your comfort zone in response to Jesus, you meet them and invite them to your church. It’s Mission Sunday, and the mission team has all kinds of mission work for us to do at Terry Heights or with Casa or some place. Do you say I am too old; I don’t have time I don’t want to be around those kinds of people. You might, but if you are saying yes, to Jesus and getting out of your comfort zone, you might find one thing you can do and go do it. What if there is a need for a Sunday School Teacher for children, or youth or young adults, do you say, I can’t teach, I am too old, I can’t relate, I don’t have time to prepare a lesson, or do you in response to Jesus step out of your comfort zone and say yes, I am willing to teach or I’ll be glad to co teach or team teach. But maybe its none of those things, but you feel Jesus calling you to come find your passion you gift your talent and put it to work, step out of your comfort zone, Do you say yes to Jesus then?

Let me tell you about an older man in his late 80’s, who joined a Methodist church that had a food bank. When he talked about the food bank, he would say things like why do you all give food to those people? You know those people smoke or drink or do drugs or all the above? You are just wasting your time, money and food. But those serving in the food bank were persistent in saying, why don’t you just come and see. So he came to see and you know what he got involved in serving in the food bank in many different ways. And he said now I see why you serve. He served until the cancer got the best of him and he was not able to do it.

Let me tell you further, this same church that had the food bank had been told they were going to die, their members were old and dying, their numbers were getting smaller. They hadn’t taken in a new member in a long time. They knew they had to change they knew they had to get out of their comfort zone and do things differently. They caught a vision of Jesus and they decided they would. They knew that meant that people would be coming to church that weren’t like them, maybe people of different color and they did, people who spoke a different language than them, and they did, people who didn’t fit their mindset of who came to church, and they did. Do you know where that church is now? It is a flourishing church with two worship services, doing new and innovative things reaching out to those that nobody else wanted in their church.

This church, Trinity has had to step out of its own comfort zone many times in many ways. It has not always been easy. It has done things that other churches have refused to do risking in ways that most would turn their back on. And this church because it started a worship service for those that weren’t your typical church goers, stepped out of the boat, the comfort zone to walk on water. I suspect because it’s in the DNA of this church we will pretty much be willing to step out of our comfort zone to walk on water. Why do we do that? I think it is because in our DNA is also that vision of Jesus that keeps calling us and that we want to grasp hold of for our lives.

I couldn’t walk on water that day out on the gulf, but I wanted too, But lest you think I am just talking about you and I am unwilling to step out of the boat, let me tell you, there have been many times in my life Jesus has asked me to step out of the boat out of my comfort zone and walk on water. And yes there have been times I have balked, resisted, made excuses, tried to talk Jesus out the call. This move was a call to step out of my comfort zone I had gotten into. I have spent the last seven years in little churches that were either dying or unhealthy in some sort of way, And now I am here with you all, in a pretty healthy church that is growing, it is moving out of my comfort zone from working with the dying church and small church. How do I feel? I feel like I am walking on water.

Jesus says to each of you Come, step out of the boat, step out of your comfort zone and walk on water? The question is will you come?