“Don’t Be Afraid, Take Courage” | Matthew 14:22–36

Show Notes

Episode 751: 
In this episode, we dive into a lively discussion about the Bible, focusing on the powerful story of Jesus walking on water, found in Matthew 14. We kick off the episode with some light-hearted banter about the nature of podcasts and the idea of what Jesus might discuss if he had his own podcast. This leads us to reflect on the significance of his famous sayings, particularly the comforting message of "don't be afraid, take courage."

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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of The Bible Guys. Oh, here we are. We are right here in this studio, right here, not there, Not in the cars, Nope, not in your homes. That be creepy. We're technically not even in their ears. What do you mean, they're just they're hearing us, but we're not there. We're here. Well, I mean yes, but if they have ear buds in we're in their ears. Sure, right, not actually in their ear, like physically in the ear, like physically. Where words matter. Yeah, words do matter, exact Yeah. We're in the middle of a podcast. What if Jesus had well, the middle of. A series series. Yeah, of podcasts, And what if Jesus had a podcast, and he'd probably cover a lot of his famous sayings and today's saying is don't be afraid to take courage. They'd probably talk about his famous saying. Well, yeah, I mean, how do you know what he talked about? Oh, what's he going to talk about? Like bigfoot aliens? Well no, but but so he of course he was like his Why would you assume that you know what Jesus would talk about? Well, I well, because he wrote it down. Here's the answer, deaf, here's the answer of what Jesus would talk about anything he wants to. That's the truth. That's true. Ye, whatever Jesus wants his podcast to be about. Yeah, but this podcast. Hey, did everything? Did ever tell you that I was? I was? I was? One of my roles was. To coach people preaching, and one of one, one guy at my previous church said the woman touched him and her and she was cleansed when she touched his garment, and she goes. And you want to know why. Jesus turned around and he an he and he actually actually like attached some sort of like custom from this first century and. He's like, that's why. And I got done, and I looked over and I go, dude, did you literally just put intent on the Son of God in that moment? Like you were literally saying, Hey, it's not mentioned, but I know what he was thinking. I know why he was going to do. I was like, dude, don't ever do that again. There you go, there it is. Well, hey, today is one of our favorite segments. Oh oh it has a jingle. It has a jingle Ready are you ready? Mail bags? There you go? Which it comes out of blue clothes, by the way, blues. That's how sophisticated we are. Yes, yes, yes, And so today comes from Alex j Hi Alex. And here's what Alex writes in He says, I've been doing a lot of well I'm assuming it's a guy. It could be a girl. I've been doing a lot of I've been doing a lot of walking lately. It's given me time to think, pray, and occasionally wonder about more the literal side of biblical journeys, which got me curious. Have you ever actually walked to the historic road to Damascus? If it is still even exists in a traceable way? I mean, that's the spot where Saul encountered Christ exclamation mark. Talk about a life changing walk. Yeah, that would be it'd be amazing. Yeah, Act chapter nine. It's one of my favorite stories where Jesus appears in the middle of the road and says Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he falls down and says, who are you? Lord? And so let's let's talk about Let's talk about his question or her question, Yes, have you ever been to Damascus? No, I've never been in Damascus. I had a trip lined up to go to Syria when war broke out. Since then, things just haven't haven't lined up. So I'm sure I'll get there, but i haven't been there yet. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So I would love to go there. But I don't think that the road, this this historic road mentioned in the Bible, I'm not sure that people claim that that exists. Well, portions of it, I think do so. Paul is in the in the Roman Empire at the time, and he's a Roman citizen, which was somewhat rare for a Jew to also be a citizen, but he was a Roman citizen, which gave you know, full access to all of the Roman roads. And they built these incredible road networks primarily for their military, and many of these road segments still exist, you know, two thousand years, three thousand years late, two thousand years later, and so there's there's a couple of different paths from ancient paths that are still used. So it's mostly for military, but commerce was a big part of that. It's one of the reasons why it became such a rich and powerful Empire. So coming from Jerusalem up there were two paths. One would cut through Samaria, go around the northern portion of Galilee, and that would go through the towns that Jesus lived in right up there, Capernaum and Besseta and all those, and then would go through the Decapolis and up then towards Damascus. The other one would come up along the River Jordan and then cut through bet Sham, which you've been in bete Sham, Yeah, yeah, for sure. So the main road goes right down that main street. That's the road that would have come from Jerusalem and cut through the south. And what that did is it allowed the traveler to skip walking through Samaria, which for a lot of the Jewish people they didn't want to walk through some Maria, there were a lot of cultural issues. They avoided it. So either way, very likely portions of the road are there. But there's no definitive trail that I know of, like there would be like a tourist trail or a pilgrimage trail. But how cool would that be if you could piece something like that together? No, my word, I'm sure people have tried. Yeah, Alex, I read a lot and I love adventure books, true adventure books. And now there's an adventurer. His name is Levison Wood and he's written a couple of books, a bunch of books now. But Walking the Nile, he walked the entire length of the Nile from the source in Rwanda all the way to Alexandria. Wow. People died on that trail, by the way, which is crazy. He also walked to the Himalayas, so almost the full length of the Himalayas. He walked through the America because on the Incan trail he did. He's done, and he wrote these really amazing books like that. And I've always thought, how cool would that be to piece together some of the ancient trails like that? And that's a brilliant idea. Oh for sure, you see, could you put together the trail for that Paul walked on? Now in Damascus, there are some historical pieces that are traditionally like the building that where they let Paul out the window on in a basket down the wall. Yeah, so there's a it's now a church, but it was an old building that they claim that that's the spot. There's a few places that are traditionally what Christians have acknowledged as as memorable places that Paul was in. Those are always vague, you know, you never know. Sure, I do know this, like in Jerusalem, the upper room. Did you visit the upper room? You know? So that's not the upper room, right, So they admit it that the building they used to say in the upper room got moved, so they just now have another upper. Room, right, right, So sometimes it was something got torn down, right, Yeah, I actually thought that. I actually sid out loud. I'm like, then why are we here? Yeah, I'm like, you're showing us an example of what an upper room could be. But guess what we have those two. So upper rooms aren't well lower rooms, right ye? So anyways, who knows how many of those things are real. But I think you could trace a couple of these road systems and find some kind of proximity, similar to like Route sixty six in America. Route sixty six was retired years and years and years ago, but from Chicago to Santa Monica there are segments that are still used and there are parallel roads that run alongside it. You might be neat to do the work, Alex and figure that out and put together a trip and get a bunch of people walk into Damascus. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Hey, it's only about a five hour drive five or six hour drive from Juice Lom today if the borders were open. The borders aren't open, but so you would go up and cut either on the south side or the north side of Galilee through the Golan Heights and then up to Damascus only about five hours, six hours. That's awesome. Hey. By the way, in thirty seconds, I'll tell you, did you ever see the play, the Broadway play Hamilton? No? Okay, So anyway, there's a there's aware of it. Though. There's a song that Aaron Burr sings, and he in the entire song, he keeps on saying, I want to be in the room where it happens, right because you know, because Alexander Hamilton made a deal with Jefferson and he was saying that he wasn't in the room and he wanted to desperately be in the room. So it's a very famous song. And if you know the Broadway play, anyway, when we went to New York, I was literally in the room where it happened. So they actually say this is what this is where it took place. And it was an upper room, right, which is what made me think of it. And so we went upstairs and we were there and I was like, this is the room where it happened. I'm sure I'm not the only one who made that connection, but it was kind of neat. So in that Roman city bet Sheanne, on the south side of Galilee, there is a main street that runs straight through that connects to the road that heads up towards Damascus. That could be it. You may have actually walked on it, so to be specific to answer the question, we may have walked on the road. Yeah, who knows. We walked a lot of places. For like half a mile, right, right, But it's pretty neat. Those ruins are pretty incredible. Yeah, yeah, well that's uh, it's it's definitely one of the most historic spots in the New Testament, Right, Jesus decided to come down and choose one more apostle to get it done. So talking about walking, Oh yeah, so who else walked, Jeff, Lots of people. One person who was fond of walking was Jesus, and he walked on the water. Yes, yeah, so. That's where we're at today. I was thinking, should we stop doing like the worst possible transition and start doing the most amazing transitions. Oh that takes work, though, shift to the most amazing. The reason why we'd default toward the worst because there's no prep, right, so we like no prep. If it's the best, then you get actually. We have to actually work at it, which, yeah, okay, here you go. We are in Matthew chapter fourteen today and now this is one of my favorite stories in the Bible. Yes, and I don't know how often I say. I say that a lot, but yeah, you do. This is one of my favorites. But you're allowed to though. Yeah, yeah, I've read at the time. It's like girls having best friends. She's my best friend, she's my best friend. She's my best friend. Yeah, okay, that's what you defaulted to. Yeah, oh, guys have one best friend. Yeah, okay, here you go. In Matthew chapter fourteen, verse twenty two, it says immediately after this, Jesus insisted that his disciples get back into the boat and crossed to the other side of the lake while he sat with people home. After sending them home, he went up into the hills by himself to pray, and night fell while he was there. Alone. Meanwhile, the disciples were in trouble far away from land, for a strong wind had risen and they were fighting heavy waves. About three o'clock in the morning, Jesus came toward them, walking on the water. When the disciples saw him walking on the water, they were terrified, and their fear cried out. And in their fear they cried out, it's a ghost. But Jesus spoke to them at once. Afraid, he said, take courage, I'm here. And then Peter called to him, Lord, if it's really you, tell me to come to you walking on the water. Yes, come, Jesus said, And so Peter went over the side of the boat and walked on the water towards Jesus. But when he saw the strong wind and the waves, he was terrified and he began to sink. Save me, Lord, he shouted. Jesus immediately reached out and grabbed him. You have so little faith, Jesus said, why did you doubt me? And when they climbed back into the boat, the wind stopped. Then the disciples worshiped him. You really are the son of God, they exclaimed, Well there you go. Oh you're not going to read the last couple verses. Yeah, sure, I like those ones too. Yeah. After they had crossed the lake, they landed in Ganessat when the people recognized Jesus. The news of his arrival spread quickly throughout the whole area, and soon people were bringing all their sick to be healed. They begged him to let the sick touch at least the fringe of his robe, and all who touched him were healed. Ooh little bonus. Yeah, I like it. Yes, So what a great story. And uh, I mean, if you've ever preached a sermon, which you've done probably dozens on this on occasion. There are so many applications to this story. One is Peter looked at the waves. Yes, the Yeah, don't take your eyes off Jesus. Yeah. So when you take your focus off Jesus and you begin to look at the world around you in the circumstances, you become afraid. But if you keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, whatever life throws at you, uh, then you you can get through, you know, through it, with God's help, in God's power. And yeah, that's the classic one. And then the other the other application is, uh, Jesus told them that they were going to the other side of the lake. And then they had I guess they didn't believe him at the beginning when he said, hey, let's go, we insisted that they go to the other side of the lake. So that's doubting an intention of God, right there, promise of God. And then another one would be Peter getting out of the boat, get. It out of your comfort zone. We can make fun of him for thinking, but the reality is before he sank, he was walking on water. That's right, that's it. It's the only human yeah. And and so you know, John Arperg writes a book and in the book title is if you want to walk on water, you have to get out of the boat. And so it's it's such a great title because you know, most of us live our lives clinging in fear to the safety of what's comfortable. I jumped out of an airplane a couple of times, three times, and the idea of being somewhere solid, you know, your feet are on the ground and then you step out into nothingness. Right, And it's interesting because nobody well, I mean, unless you have done this, you probably really don't think about it. But like the people who jump out before you they go to your left very quickly, and then they go down very quickly, so they go like into nothingness and there's just gone right, and it's like it's who you just always want to throw up. You're like, I can't believe that, Like that's that's what's in store for me. This episode of the Bible Guys actually has sound effect. That's right, So you're welcome for that. Yeah yeah, yeah for people eating their egg McMuffin. Yeah, big a muffin. That's what you chose. So anyway, the uh, you know, but the idea like like it was just that fear of stepping out from what a solid into nothing and uh and I'm but once I did it, once I jumped, then then I believe it or not. I was sort of fine. I was fine. It was like, okay, I'm good. Uh, I'm pretty confident that this thing's going to open. And if it doesn't open, I have a backup shoot and and if we both pass out, there's an altimeter which actually opens your shoot at a certain altitude. So it's like, you know, and the guy who was strapped in my back had jumped over ten thousand times, so I had I had a lot of confidence once I jumped, but it was the actual jumping. And I just can't of age Peter coming up with the idea. There's another application. He came up with the idea himself. Lord, let me come if that If that's really you, I want to walk on. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, And nobody else came up with that. Yeah that's impressive. Yeah, I love it. And this is so classic Peter. His personality. She's always the first one to speak. He's the one who pulls out the sword and cuts off the guy's ear. He's he's just so just all in just I think he would have been a fun guy when he wasn't mad. She would have been a fun guy to hang out with, right because he just does He's so impetuous and just kind of spurred the moment kind of. Yeah, he's definitely that guy. And I think that, Oh. Well, I think Peter, it was a lot like you in this When somebody say, well, thank you, Jeff, Wait a minute, does that make you more like Jesus? Well? When when when somebody when suggests something just a little crazy, Yeah, I'm usually the one that goes, oh, I don't know, maybe maybe we should do that And you're the one that goes, yeah, we should do that. Yes, yes, let's go backstage, let's go right, oh, or for sneak around do all those goofy things that that's usually you. Yes, and I think Peter is kind of that way too. Yeah. So let's give some context to this though, So it says immediately after this, that's where we started. So immediately after this, what was that? That was Jesus spent five thousand with the kids sack lunch. Yeah, five thousand men besides women and children, right, which is probably what what was the total? You think like twelve thousand. Yeah, twelve fifteen thousand probably, Yeah, that's that's incredible. They weren't managing their family sizes right, right. And the reason why they only measured men as they're representing families. Ol family, right, that's what it was. In our culture today, we would have said and there were five thousand families right, right, But they just said men because that's that's how they would have measured the family. So then so that had happened, right that Jesus had fed five thousand people right before that, John the Baptist is executed. John the Baptist is Jesus's cousin. Yeah, he's executed right before. The people in Nazareth, where Jesus grew up, rejected him and almost decided kill him. And so so he needed a break in the hills, is what you're saying. And then he had he had preached so much in those days before, and so he was just wiped out. You can imagine the highs and the lows of what's going on. He's he's preaching and thousands of people are listening. He goes home and his whole village rejects him after having spent his whole life there. And then he goes on and he feeds five thousand people. How great is that? Because people want to stay late in the day to hear him teach. But then after they're done eating, he doesn't have any more food, and they leave him. He asked him, there, he's going to leave you. Oh hey, by the way, your cousin just died. Your cousin's dead. Yeah, right before that. If you, if you kind of track the line, the disciples had come back to tell Jesus, man, we were casting out demons in your name, all these amazing things. It's high low, high low, and it's it's like a whip saw kind of time here, a week or so of just highs and lows. And so when he comes to the end of this, he goes, Okay, guys, let's just go to the other side of the lake, which was one of his strategies. They get on the boat and they try to outrun the people, get the other side of the lake for a while, and you guys go on to the other side of the lake. And then the Bible says Jesus goes up into the hills to pray, and there's other times the Bible says it was his custom to do it. Right. This is so I think he's emotionally exhausted. Clearly he's physically exhausted. And his only answer was I need to go spend time with my dad. Right, And there's another application. Right. So the application is, you know, we're too busy not to pray. Yeah, yeah, that that famous little poem that's anonymous. You know. The poem says, I was so busy I didn't have time to pray. And then at the end of the poem, the poet says, I realized that I'm too busy not to pray, So it's it's just the idea that like, when your life is packed full, well, the first thing you should do is probably, well not probably squeeze in and make time to spend time with your heavenly father, because you know that matters, right, It matters when we spend time with our father, our relationship with our father. You know, sometimes have you ever done this? Have you ever been so worried about something? And then after you pray, you're like, I'm not sure why, or maybe I am sure, but I feel so much better right now after you pray. Yeah, it's almost like a supernatural releasing of anxiety. And it's almost like I'm reminded that God's got this, He's in control, and it recenters us, refocuses us. But more than that, it just it connects us with our heavenly Father. So I don't know how long Jesus prays, right, he leaves the people. It's late in the afternoon. It's why the disciples wanted Jesus to do something send them home, because it's getting late and there's no food available. So he does a miracle, feeds them and then sends them home. So it's in the late afternoon. All the restaurants are closed at this point, so the directors are closed. There's no more in and out Burger, So they go home. And at this point he sends them across. And then it says he goes up in the mountains to pray. It doesn't say he prays all night. It doesn't say he prais non stop. But he does spend some time talking to the Lord or talking to his father. And then it says night fell while he was there alone. So the other side of this is this solitude, this recovery. It's okay to recover. Uh maybe you feel you know when when when it's when the it can be overwhelming, just with good stuff. How many of you ever had you know, you've married off your daughters, your daughters where other daughter is getting married? Yeah yeah, yeah, second daughter, but your first daughter you' married of, you know how just exhausting. The wedding weekend is oh yeah, and it's it's supposed to be mostly good, right, right, He's mostly good, But it's just exhausting. Sometimes even when it's great, you need to take a break. I found after our big, last big baptism, it was what two hundred something people we baptized well, yeah, forty eight, we had this big baptism event, public event. I was just wiped out. I had done a lot of ministry travel, I've been doing a lot of things and I just was wiped out and I needed a break. But I couldn't get one for like several days. And then I finally I got a couple of days break and it was interesting. I spent a little bit of time in the word, I spent some time praying, but mostly I just didn't do anything, just rested right. And there's something to that. I think that you see this rhythm in Jesus' life, highs and lows, highs and lows, and then he'll pause, and he'll go up in the mountains to pray, he'll go out into the desert, he'll take a break. And this is why the Bible gave us a sabbath. Was you know, sabbath is for man, not man. For the sabbath, Jesus said, it's a gift from God to make sure that you have a rhythm of getting healthy again, whether it's getting healthy from all the good things happening, or getting healthy from all of the bad things happening, the stressful things. Yeah, but that's what he does. So it's in that context, after he's done spending time alone, after he's done spending time with his with his father, maybe other than raising people from the dead, this is the most impressive miracle Jesus does. I can't I can think I'm a more impressive miracle. Are than raising people from the dead, feeding five thousands pretty impressive? But this one is I don't know. I mean, if a blind guy sees that's pretty good. Yeah, right, sure, you know, walks. Maybe maybe we should do a segment what's our favorite miracles? Is this? Yeah? Top five? But yeah, I mean it's certainly the most epic because it's unexpected. How about that? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, well to be the most unexpected thing. So a healer heals, that's what he does. But dude, I never even contemplated that you would walk on water until he did it. Well, not only that, but I think you're right in that he's now demonstrating he's not just lord over people, He's lord over the elements of the. Earth, which nobody can control. Right, That's exactly where I was going is his disciples had seen Jesus heal blind people and laying people and deaf people. He'd see they'd seen him, do they see saw him feed people with a sack lunch. But it says at the end here when he gets in the boat, the wind stops, and the disciples worshiped him. You really are the son of God. Yeah, And another version says, what manner of man is this? Where even the wind and the waves obey him? That's from the other Oh, that's from peace be still, the peace be still. Yeah, it is just before this. That peace be still moment was from the So in the Book of Mark, we were just talking about this. The Book of Markets, Mark four is when he says, peace be still and the storm stops. Mark six is when he walks on the water. So, yeah, it happened just before. Hey, you know what I always wonder. It says that there's high winds, and we've talked about this before, but in the Sea of Galilee, it's a natural it's a natural bowl where winds are like eighteen to twenty feet high. And and what did I say, wins, Yeah, the waves. Are that high. So you can imagine if they're in a small boat. You know, there's waves that you can't even see over, and it's just up and down and you're thinking you're going to die, and then all of a sudden, Jesus walking in the water. Well, if the water was was that, you know, eighteen to twenty foot waves, then here's my question. My question is did Jesus walk on a level, straight line and he made the wind the waves go around him? Or was Jesus literally walking up and down on the waves. That's a good question, right, was he was he going up twenty feet and coming down twenty feet? Well, whatever it was, they could see him, yes, and they thought he was a ghost, right, Yeah, I don't know, that's a good question. Yeah. Or he could he could make it to where the waves didn't come near him, maybe right, And he's he's just walking and all of a sudden, it's like he just sent He's just calm. Like he could choose any topic for his podcast. That's right, whatever he wants, whatever he wants he wants. But it was convincing enough that they decided this really is the son of God. The sure very emphatic moment where they're like, okay, this goes beyond a normal heel or he's not just doing tricks and healing people. He's real and so then I love this idea, and I think we can wrap up here. I love this idea that Peter decided it was safer with Jesus outside the boat in the middle of the storm than it was to stay in through the boats from Jesus, right. And so if you're in the middle of a storm right now, if you're in the middle of some kind of crisis, it's safer closer to Jesus than it is away from Jesus. And even if in that moment when you're close to Jesus, if your faith falters a little bit, cry out to Jesus, and the Bible says he immediately reached down and grabbed Peter immediately, right. So he's the closer you are, the more confident you are in Christ. But if anything falters, your faith faulters a little bit, alls you do is cry out, and immediately Jesus reached down grab Peter. It's the same for you. So safer with him than without him. Yeah, that's right. Well, that's a great place to wrap up, and hopefully we will see you tomorrow on the Bible gush Us