Why nobody left the ship

Pastor Devon Ortiz continued his series on getting out of a rut with part two of The Danger Of Playing It Safe, returning to Matthew 14:22-33. Playing it safe, he said, will never give you anything except comfort. He said scripture gives us 365 "fear nots," one for every day we live, because there are things we should be stepping out on and fear makes us withdraw.

Verse 22 says Jesus "constrained" His disciples to get into the ship, almost forcing them, knowing full well what was coming. That tells us storms are not meant for us to run from, he said, but to learn from. Verse 23 shows Jesus taking time to pray, and if the Son of God took time to pray, how much more should we. And verse 26 says the disciples cried out for fear. Fear drives more of our decisions than we admit: greed comes from fearing we will not have enough, anger from fearing no one is listening, and people-pleasing from fearing what others will think.

In a storm, the boat seems like the safest place to be. Pastor Ortiz pointed to the Titanic, saying that for about two hours people stayed aboard the sinking ship and the first lifeboats went out half empty, because they believed the ship was safer. In the same way, we get comfortable even while the ship is going down.

Peter's step toward Jesus

Peter heard the voice he knew and was compelled to say, "Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water." When we are yielded to God, Pastor Ortiz said, we will be compelled to walk on the water with Him, not because we have to, but because we want to get closer to Him. There is no safer place than with Jesus, yet we only say amen to that until we actually have to go to Him, because going to Him may mean putting something away.

He told of three things he had to put away to get closer to Jesus. The first was the wrong girl, who was not a bad girl but was not good for him, though his pastor, his mother, and even her parents told him so. The second was his dream of working in kinesiology or chiropractic, a good thing that simply was not for him. The third and hardest was his pride. Pride will always leave you with the one thing you are trying to protect, he said, and it is yourself. James says God resists the proud, and a stubborn person who will not budge needs to change.

Verse 30 says that "when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid." He had not been afraid to step out, because when we yield to Jesus that fear goes away. The power of the Holy Spirit lives in us, Pastor Ortiz said, so we can do something that makes no sense at all and watch God help us fail upward. Peter's fear returned when he looked at the situation. Jesus caught him at once with the words "O thou of little faith," and Pastor Ortiz asked: if Peter had little faith, what did the men on the boat have? Then verse 32 says that when they came into the ship, the wind ceased. Peace is not found in a place, he said. It is found in a person.

When comfort congeals

We treat our finances, our spiritual growth, and our marriages like that boat. It feels secure and familiar, but nothing is actually working for us. He described reaching into a bag of Thanksgiving leftovers to make his favorite sandwich, and pulling out what he thought was turkey and finding turkey Jell-O. It had not been that way when it went into the bag. It sat, grew cold, and congealed. Relationships and our walk with God can do the same. Just because something feels okay does not mean it is okay, and the longer we stay that way, the harder it is to change. We pray the same words, keep our circle small, and avoid people. The church was never meant to make you comfortable, he said. It was meant to make you more like Christ. The comfort zone feels like wisdom until it is not, and all the while it is a slow death.

What fear does

Fear mistakes the familiar for the impossible. The disciples looked at Jesus and saw a ghost. When you live in a rut too long, Pastor Ortiz said, you stop recognizing God's voice when it calls you to do something you would never otherwise do. Abraham was seventy-five when God told him to leave. If God is still calling people at 75, He is calling people at 45 and at 25, and saying "I'm too old for that" is only fear talking.

Fear trains you to call God's work a threat. When someone is needed to usher or help in an area of the church, we get upset and ask why someone else cannot do it. We expect our spouses and children to leave their comfort zones while we will not leave ours, and we teach our children that being inconsistent is acceptable. When others show conviction to serve God, we call them naive. The Pharisees had all the knowledge of the word of God and did nothing with it, because they would not come out of their comfort zone, and Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, afraid of what others would think.

Fear renames obedience as foolishness. Eleven men heard the same invitation, had the same access to Jesus, and knew what He could do, and only one stepped out. They were not wicked or rebellious. They were cautious and comfortable, and what they did was perfectly reasonable, but Peter got the miracle. Pastor Ortiz spoke of seeing children the church had prayed for, who came close to not making it, now healthy and strong. If you do not step out, he said, you do not see that, and your Christian life becomes dull and boring. Comfort zones are full of reasonable people who have never witnessed a miracle.

How to get out of the boat

Stop obeying only when it is convenient. True obedience is never convenient. Sunday night services are not convenient, especially in a shared building where everything must be set up and taken down, and few churches in the area still hold them. Giving is not convenient when everything costs more. Going door to door makes no sense when most doors will close. But obedience is not for convenience, Pastor Ortiz said. Obedience is for Christ.

Stop blaming others. When we live by the rational instead of by faith, we begin to say it is the pastor's fault we are not growing, or that the church does not give us what we need. He recalled someone who left wanting a stronger kids ministry, two weeks after being asked to help with it. As long as you can point to what is missing around you, he said, you never have to deal with what is missing in you.

Let what you believe show in how you live. If no action follows belief, it becomes easy to live contrary to it, and he said this is why so many teenagers and young adults are being lost. Doctrine is not simply a head thing. It is a life thing. Titus 1:16 speaks of those who "profess that they know God; but in works they deny him," and calls them "abominable," which he explained as taking something good and twisting it, and "reprobate," meaning there is no feeling left about the wrong being done.

Will you wait two hours?

Pastor Ortiz closed in the book of Jude. Verse 5 says God saved His people out of Egypt and "afterward destroyed them that believed not." Verse 6 tells of angels who left their own habitation and are reserved in chains. Verse 7 says Sodom and Gomorrah are "set forth for an example." These are sobering warnings about knowing better and living for yourself anyway. So he asked: if you are still in your rut, doing the same thing over and over, knowing very well it is not getting you closer to Christ, are you going to wait those two hours? He prayed that the church would break out of the rut, live in faith and not fear, and be doers of the word and not hearers only.