Out of the boat

Pastor Devon Ortiz began a new series on getting out of a rut and out of your comfort zone with Matthew 14:22-33, where Jesus sends the disciples across the sea, comes to them walking on the water in the storm, and Peter steps out of the boat to walk to Him. He said Peter had plenty of flaws, but God is looking at faith more than flaws. David was probably the most flawed man in scripture, and he was still a man after God's own heart. Peter walking on water is impressive, Pastor Ortiz said, but it was not the greatest thing in the story. The greatest thing was God using someone willing to take a step out, and the problem is that we get too scared to take the step of faith we need to take.

The storm sits inside God's will

In verse 22 Jesus "constrained" the disciples to get into the ship, meaning He compelled them. He already had a plan for them before they realized it, and He already knew a storm was coming. Pastor Ortiz pointed to John 6:15, where Jesus left the crowd that wanted to make Him king, because His aim at that moment was to build up His disciples. The storm sits inside God's will, not outside of it. He told the young people that God has a plan for their lives, and that if they direct their own lives they will wreck their lives.

In verse 23 Jesus goes up alone to pray. As both fully God and fully man, He did not have to, as Colossians shows in calling Him the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He wanted to be with the Father, and in that presence He was strengthened physically. This world will beat us up, Pastor Ortiz said, and without time alone with the Father we run on empty and become the problem.

In verse 24 the winds are contrary. When everything in life is going against us, he said, we tend to run to comfort: familiar shows, comfortable clothes, comfort food. The disciples were rowing against the waves into the fourth watch of the night, around 3:00 to 6:00 in the morning, when Jesus came walking on the sea. They had been with Him for months and still cried out that it was a spirit, because fear was in front of their eyes more than reason. When we are afraid, he said, our rational thinking goes out the window. Jesus answered in verse 27, "It is I; be not afraid," and Pastor Ortiz noted that the Greek carries the idea of "I am," calling back to God's words to Moses in Exodus 3:14. His presence is what pulls us out of fear.

Peter's step

Peter's boldness came from being in the presence of Jesus, and it let him take a step of faith no one else on the boat was willing to take. But in verse 30, "when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid," and he began to sink. He had stopped looking at Jesus and started looking at his problem. Pastor Ortiz pointed out that Peter was already walking on the water, and all he had to do was look back up. Even so, verse 31 says Jesus "immediately" stretched out His hand and caught him, with a small rebuke: "O thou of little faith."

Comfort zones are not safe zones

Pastor Ortiz asked the congregation to imagine the fellowship hall was that boat with waves crashing against it. Where would be the safest place? In the boat, of course. But in this case it was not, because the boat was in peril and going nowhere. The safest Peter ever was in this whole story was when he was walking on the water toward Jesus, because the wind and the waves did not matter at that moment. Peter ended up soaking wet and scared, but he was the only disciple who experienced God working through him.

Most people would say they want God to work through their lives, he said, and the reason He is not is that they do not want to leave their comfort zone. The disciples were experienced fishermen who knew boats, and the boat felt familiar and secure, yet the very thing that made them feel safe was going nowhere. They had also watched Jesus calm a storm a few chapters earlier, so they knew better. The rut you are in is not keeping you safe, he said. If your answer is "This is the way I've always done it," maybe God is saying to stop doing it that way.

Growing up in the faith

He called up a fourteen-year-old boy from the church and asked the congregation to imagine him standing there with a pacifier and a diaper. It would be strange, because he has grown up. He asked the boy about deodorant, doing his hair, dressing for church, and washing his clothes, all basic things a young man now does for himself. Pastor Ortiz said some Christians are still wearing diapers in the faith and expecting God to bless them as if they had matured. Hebrews 11:6 says that without faith it is impossible to please Him, so a safe, comfortable Christian life with no faith in it will never please God. The boat was never the plan for the disciples.

What staying in the boat looks like

We stick to the basics. We show up on Sunday, the Bible stays closed Monday through Saturday, we pray only when something is breaking, and we avoid the big sins. He told of a man who was at every service and every event for about twenty years before he finally got saved. Praise the Lord for that, he said, but for twenty years that man stayed on the boat.

We pray the same script. Bless the food, bless the family, amen. Prayer becomes a grocery list rather than a conversation. He pictured only ever talking to a friend in order to hand over a list of chores, and said that is not a relationship but a genie. If we say nothing worth a response, we stop expecting God to answer.

We keep the same circle. The same friends, the same conversations, the same seats, and no one who challenges us. He said he does not want yes-men on his staff or an echo chamber around him. Eleven disciples watched Peter walk on water, and not one of them said, "Let me go too."

We give, but never let it cost us. We give out of a sense of obligation, or we do not give at all. He quoted Luke 6:38, "Give, and it shall be given unto you," and illustrated with a full glass that cannot take any more water, and with a toddler he once fed who kept his mouth full and still wanted the next spoonful. Until we let go of what we are holding, God has no room to give us more. The comfort zone will always feel like wisdom, he said, but spiritually it is a slow death.

What fear does the longer we stay

Fear mistakes the familiar for the impossible. The disciples had been with Jesus so long and still took Him for a ghost. In the same way, someone who has gone years without growing, praying, giving, or serving looks at the next step and says there is no way they could do it. What was once possible now seems impossible because they got too comfortable. Pastor Ortiz said this is also one reason he thanks God for moving the church out of its previous building, where everything was easy, even though the move has been frustrating at times.

Fear trains us to treat God's call like a threat. Serving God starts to sound like too much, even for someone who years ago would have thought it was the greatest thing anyone could do.

Fear renames obedience as foolishness. And the longer we stay in the comfort zone, the louder that fear gets.

Time for a reset

Pastor Ortiz asked whether the people were comfortable, whether they were in a rut, doing the Christian life the same way and expecting something more. Sometimes, he said, God puts a person on a reset, and they need to put things behind them and press forward. Without Christians who step up, he said, he does not see a future for the church, a next generation coming out of it, family members and neighbors being saved, or joy in the house of God. He prayed for young people who would give their lives to serve God, whether in the ministry or by being faithful in a job and in the church, and for senior saints who would say with Caleb that they still want that mountain, and fight some battles in their old age knowing they gave it all they had.