Peace: His Hand Is Real

Nathan Adams · Tidal Church Moncton · May 18, 2025 · The Promises of God series

Nathan Adams looks at Jesus walking on the water and rescuing sinking Peter in Matthew 14. When fear and anxiety feel overwhelming, the scarred, carpenter's hand of Jesus is more real than any storm, and He holds on even when faith is small.

More from Nathan Adams · The The Promises of God series

Topics: Peace, Faith, Fear & Anxiety

Transcript

[0:00] Greetings from Tidal Shediac. My wife and I attend Tidal Shediac, and it's a privilege to be able to speak with you this morning. As I was preparing this message, I looked to God in prayer all the time, and I'm always like, "God, what do You want me to say?" And He said something to me that made very little sense. He said, "Just tell them My hand is real." I said, "Oh, that's a good one. God, thanks for that." But then it got more real as I went into it. And we'll get to that. Well, you know, in a few weeks you're probably gonna be at your favorite beach. What's your favorite beach? Is it Parlee? Is it Sandy Beach? A ato Casey Cape. Right? Right. And you know all those beaches. And if anyone says it's the Fundy, you haven't been to the good beaches anyway. But one thing about these beaches along, you know, Parlee and all that on the Acadian shore is that it takes a little while to get out into the water, doesn't it?

[0:50] You have to go out and you're kind of going down. You hit the cold spot and you make it through. You're up to your waist, you gotta even up to your chest. And then something weird can happen. All of a sudden you start coming up and before you know it, you're 200 feet from the shore and you're in one inch of water. Now, if your mama took you to Sunday school and read those Bible stories when you're young, your sense of humor has been just warped enough that you go, "Ha, hey, look. Come, Jesus, I'm walking on the water." Unless that's the story we're gonna read right now, is Jesus walking on the water. You'll find out it's quite a bit different than our fun at Parlee Beach. Matthew chapter 14, verse 22 says this: Immediately, Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of Him to the other side of the Sea of Galilee while He dismissed the crowd.

[1:37] Okay? He had just fed the 5,000 with two fish and five loaves of bread. So He sends the disciples, it says, after He dismissed them, He went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. And later that night, He was there all alone. And the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it. Lord, we just need You right now. I don't think we hear Your word very easily. Speak to us now as we continue to read this story. We ask in Jesus' name. Shortly before dawn, Jesus went out to them on the lake, walking on the water.

[2:27] When the disciples saw Him walking on the lake, they were terrified. "It's a ghost," they said. And they cried out in fear. But Jesus immediately said to them, "Take courage. It is I. Do not be afraid." And Peter said, "Lord, if it's You, tell me to come out to You on the water." "Come," said Jesus. Then Peter got down out of the boat, he walked on the water and came towards Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid. And beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me." Immediately, Jesus reached out His hand and caught him. "You of little faith," He said, "why did you doubt?"

[3:17] And when they climbed into that boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshiped Him, saying, "Truly, You are the Son of God." This morning, we're just gonna get into the story. And sometimes when you wanna get into a story, you have to get into the heads of the people that are in the story, right? This is a story about 12 Jews in the boat, in the Sea of Galilee. Okay? So let's start with the Jew part. Okay? Jews have this rich spiritual history. And so these 12 disciples would know all about water miracles. 'Cause Exodus is a great, the feature of Exodus is the high point is a great water miracle, where God appears to Moses and says, "Moses, two things. One, My name am Yahweh, means I am.

[4:03] And I'm gonna deliver My people from slavery in Egypt." And so as He delivers those people, the ultimate moment comes when the people are leaving Egypt and the Egyptian army is pursuing them and they're blocked by a body of water. And God parts that sea. And the people walk through to the other side and they're saved from the Egyptians. And so this is deeply ingrained into the Jewish people. Every Passover, every year they celebrate the Passover and their delivering from Egypt. They talk about that water miracle. And then 40 years later, when the people of Israel are ready finally to go into the Promised Land, they're blocked by the Jordan River. No big deal, right? If you've ever seen the Jordan River, except when it's in flood, like any body of water, a stream, a small river becomes impossible and dangerous.

[4:52] But God says to Joshua, "Send the priests on ahead with the ark and tell 'em to walk out in that water." And they walk out in that water. And as they do, the water pushes back. In fact, it piles up upstream, like an invisible dam has been placed across the river, and the nation of Israel marches forward across a dry riverbed. And God says, "You know, this is so phenomenal, Joshua, that the people will not remember. They just won't be able to hold on to what happened here. It's too strange. It's too outta the ordinary. Take stones, one from each tribe of Israel, out of the middle, pile 'em up on the edge as a monument. So we will always remember what has happened." And even though it had been hundreds and hundreds of years since such a great water miracle had happened, the Jewish people had repeated it and ingrained it into their children.

[5:39] And it was part of their faith. And so when the 12 disciples are in the boat and they see their rabbi walking to them on the water, they are thinking, God is renewing His great work right in the midst of us. This is amazing. And they're also saying, "Can this really be happening? I read about it. Now I'm seeing it. Is it real?" And when we read this story, this is the question that comes to us. Is this real? Well, you know, there's a lot of religious books you can read. I don't want to, this, pick up the Book of Mormon. Not one place in there is real. Not one person is verified. You pick up this book full of stuff that's real. And let me give you an example. Let's check out the Sea of Galilee. Very, very real.

[6:28] That Sea of Galilee is 10 feet, 10 kilometers wide, 10 kilometers, 20 kilometers, high or the other direction. It's about the same size as Grand Lake. Has anyone been to Grand Lake up by Oromocto? It's big. It's big enough that you don't wanna take a small craft out there and get caught in a big windstorm. 'Cause you could get swamped. Sea of Galilee though is really bad because, you know, Oromocto is just surrounded by more forest. Well, Sea of Galilee's got mountains on one side, they're feeding into it. And the other side has got, like across the Jordan, it's got desert. So these winds and these systems, you imagine being the weatherman for that. And we're gonna have a massive system come outta the mountains and meet the whole hot air of the desert, and boom.

[7:14] And today, all the time, there are severe storms that arise suddenly on the Sea of Galilee, a very real place with a very real weather. So as the disciples see Jesus walking to them on the water, you have to understand that it wasn't the first time that something weird for them had happened with Jesus on the Sea of Galilee. If you flip back from Matthew 14 to Matthew 8, you'll see the first occasion. In this occasion, Jesus is not walking on the water. He's in the boat with them. It says, "Suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping in the boat. The disciples went in and woke Him, saying, 'Lord, save us.

[8:00] We're going to drown.'" And He replied, "You have little faith. Why are you so afraid?" Did you know that Jesus just nicknamed them in this? If I go into the Greek and I look at it, little faith is not two words. It is one: little faith. Like, I was tortured as a parent where my kids had to watch shows that were really insidious. They get in your mind, you know, and there was one called The Land Before Time, and there was Little Foot and the Land Before Time. I wanted to discipline Little Foot, okay? I just did not like this character, Little Foot. But Jesus looks at you and looks at them and says, "Hey, little faith." And He's not doing it to be rude. He's putting this little nickname on them. "Little Faith, why are you so afraid?"

[8:48] And so in the next couple weeks, as I look at the weather forecast and there's rain coming, some of you are gonna be going, "Did I get the rider for basement coverage for my insurance because my basement just filled with water?" Some of you are gonna be shopping and you're gonna go, "Where are my children?" You're gonna get something in the mail and go, "What is this? This is crazy." And the fear's gonna hit you. The doctor's gonna call you for a change. And that's bad news usually. And you're gonna be gripped with fear all of a sudden. And Jesus' words are to you: little faith. Why are you so afraid? You see, Jesus wasn't afraid. It says in Matthew 8:26, "Then Jesus got up and rebuked the wind and the waves, and it was completely calm.

[9:34] The disciples were amazed and they asked, 'What kind of man is this? Even the wind and the waves obey Him.'" Yeah, Yahweh, that's what kind of man I am. So both in this story that happened earlier and our main story we're looking at today, we've got a boat pitching and almost sinking. We've got Peter sinking into the waters. He is trying to walk on it in the second story. And Jesus says the same thing, "Little faith, why are you so afraid?" And so this morning I want to ask you, are you afraid? Are you anxious? Are you despairing and getting in over your head? Are you not able to sleep at night because your anxiety keeps you going?

[10:23] Are the regular routines of life getting you to the point where you can't cope with them? Has it even started to become clinical? You know, in anxiety, depression, mental illness? The question is, is Jesus real? It's a tricky question. I wanna tell you that your faith can sometimes make your mental illness worse. Dave, Pastor Dave, you've been to the psych ward and I need an amen from you. 'Cause there's a whole bunch of people telling them about, ah, yeah, Satan said this and I figured out Revelation and all that. And it's not helping. I'm like, why don't we go back to the basics? When I meet those folks and they're wonderful folks, and sometimes just in a phase, but faith can actually complicate your mental illness.

[11:13] However, overall faith seems to help with mental illness. So much so that psychologists have suddenly gotten on board. If you know anything about psychology, Sigmund Freud founded psychology and he hated religion. And he was an atheist to the core and sought to build so much of what they were, their theory, upon atheism. And so it's hilarious that now in psychology, people are suddenly going, "Faith is a good thing." And that's because we've got a lot of data these days. Data says, if your butt's in that seat right there, you are a little bit better off mental health. Can I get an amen? Amen. Amen. No, really, that's not worth amening. I mean, you're like 2% better, okay? Like, anyway, but they've actually checked it out.

[11:59] And you can just go to the American Psychological Association Handbook on Psychology and Religion, the chapter entitled "Religion, Spirituality, Depression, Anxiety: Theory, Research and Practice." And you can read a really insightful article by a guy named Dean. And Dean is an agnostic. That means he doesn't know if there's a God and he's a therapist. And he says, "Look, yeah, if people go to church, it helps. But if they really do their religion, and we'd say their relationship, and they do it in the right way, it makes actually quite a dramatic difference." So I love it because when an agnostic therapist can start preaching the gospel for me, I get excited.

[12:46] So let's look and see what the agnostic therapist says. Positive faith coping strategies. And do you have these? They're constructive faith coping strategies. The first is, if you are giving and receiving spiritual support, you're gonna do better. That means pastors, groups, friendships, and you're serving. This is not a recruitment call. Second thing is personally engaging in Bible reading and prayer, says the agnostic therapist, cracks me up, reappraising stressful situations in light of God's goodness. In other words, God's for you, not against you. What's He doing in this situation? And the last thing is, if you combine your faith with other coping strategies such as physical physical wellness, medical, psychological, it helps a lot.

[13:39] Now here's a few destructive faith coping strategies. And this may come straight from your overly strict religious upbringing. To be honest with you, check this out. First one is letting negative things continue to happen because you feel it's God's will, very passive. Second, fixating on why God allowed this to happen instead of asking what He wants to do through it, feeling that God has deserted you or is punishing you, thinking that you are failing God. If you're not always peaceful and joyful, man, there's nothing that can make you feel worse when you read about peace and you don't have peace. Must be your fault, right? And the last thing is searching for a miracle cure more than the spiritual strength.

[14:29] So this, of course, has caused psychology to be actually fairly pro-faith, to the point where you ought to be careful when you're going to a psychologist now to make sure they're not mixing in something, to their psychology. That's neither psychology nor Christianity. I advise discernment, but yeah, psychology's kind of caught onto it. Now, basically the psychology has faith in faith, but what was Peter's name again? Little Faith. What saved Peter? Mr. Little Faith, Jesus saved Peter, not his faith. And so let's get back into this story. Let's get deeper, and let's see if we can understand what was happening with Peter, with Jesus, and with the disciples.

[15:22] Okay? So if I go back to Matthew 14:22, it says, immediately Jesus made His disciples go away into the boat. He compelled them in the Greek, and they go away to the other side. He dismisses the crowd, and then He goes up on the mountainside to pray. And He prays for most of the night. You know, if you just read the backstory, before He fed the 5,000, He had just got news that John the Baptist had been martyred for his faith. And Jesus would've been, as a human being, dealing with all those negative emotions. And He chose to deal with them by a time of extended prayer. And so that's what He's doing. He sends the disciples off, and they're going across the lake. So they've got themselves probably an eight to 10 kilometer trek across a bit of the lake.

[16:11] And it says that they are quite a distance from land. In the Greek it says many stadia. 180 meters is a stadia, many, let's say two or three or four kilometers into the deep water. And it says that it's shortly before dawn. Technically it says it's the fourth watch. The fourth watch would be 3:00 AM to 6:00 AM. You know, it's always darkest before the dawn. That's where they're at, okay? And they've been buffeted by the wind, tormented by it, punished by it. Okay? Now, there's 12 guys in a boat. Oh, we actually have the boat. I probably went past the, past the slide already. Can you go back to that slide, Cindy, that shows the boat? I see it there.

[16:58] This is a boat they dug up from the Sea of Galilee that comes directly from the time of Christ. Like, almost precisely. It's just like one of the boats that the, disciples would've been in. This is of course the remains of it, but you've got 12 guys in this type of boat. It's a storm, and they're rowing. Has anyone ever been in a rowing thing where you're with people? Anyone done the dragon boat thing or anything? Someone's drumming, right? Or if you look in the Olympics, when the, when you've got the poles, the sculls and stuff, you've got 12 man, eight man, whatever, and there's always someone calling it out, right? So for eight hours in the darkness and in the storm, someone has been calling it out, and they would say, "Come," is how they'd say.

[17:45] We'd say, "Pull, pull, pull." They'd say, "Come, come." So for eight hours they're in this darkness, they are exhausted, they are getting nowhere. And then suddenly Jesus appears to them walking on the water. And the word said. And they said, they cried out in fear and they said, "It's a ghost." Now, when I read "It's a ghost," I always think it's the spirit of the dearly departed Jesus. But the Bible doesn't actually talk about ghosts like that, doesn't believe in that. If you look at the Greek, the word is phantasma, from which we get the word fantasy. They're seeing something that they don't know if it's real.

[18:33] Is this in my head only? Am I tricking myself? Am I mean eight hours worth caught out here? Am I wanting to see Jesus coming, and He's, and is He really coming? Is this real? Is this a mirage? Is it a phantasma? And I can tell you it's not just 'cause that's the Greek word. Because very quickly Peter says to Jesus, "If it's You, tell me to come." Is this real? It's what he wants to know. And Jesus says, "Hey, it's me." It's, I am, actually in the Greek. I am. Don't be afraid. Take courage. It's me. So Peter gets out and Peter walks on that water and he takes one step.

[19:20] He takes two steps. And it's amazing, except for one thing. You see, Peter has a built-in expectation in his head probably that when Jesus shows up, the storm's gone. So what happened last time, right? We woke Jesus up, He got up, He rebuked the storm, and it was gone. Miracle. I love those miracles, don't you? Jesus shows up. Bam. Problem, solution, love those miracles. And that's the first kind. We'll put it up on the screen, the first kind of miracle. But that's not what happens. You see Peter's walking on the water, but the wind that had previously fallen when Jesus was around is now whipping stuff in his face.

[20:08] And he's probably expecting to have his parley beach fake walk on the water, right? Nice and calm. No, he's walking on the water in a storm. And this is what's actually going on for Peter. And it's terrifying. And so it says that Peter, because he got afraid from the wind and the storm that was still going on, even though Jesus was there, he loses his faith and he starts to sink. And again, the Greek's kind of fun. It doesn't mean, "Oh, I think I'm sinking." It means boop, all of a sudden you go from standing on the water to drowning. That's what it means, drowning. And in that drowning moment, as he's in the dark water, and as the wind is going, he's exhausted and he's sinking in the water, he probably could see Jesus' hand reaching downhill.

[21:06] So that hand of Jesus, let's think about it. Let's go to a different scene. Let's leave the dark of night. Let's go a few years earlier. It's sunlight. The only sound you can hear is the rhythm of a saw cutting into the wood. And you smell that sawdust. And it's Jesus, the carpenter, the tradesman. Maybe He's cut a lintel for a doorway and He's setting that up over the door. And then He takes His mortar and mixes some more mortar and puts it on and then puts some stones in and continues building this home that He's building. He sees His hands, the tradesman hands. They're thick. You know how fingers get when you work, they're thick, they're rough.

[21:54] He'd have some scars on it because any carpenter knows that that saw bites more than wood. Those hammers hit more than nails. And what do His fingernails look like? Can you see His fingernails? They've got that etching that you get from the, from the mortar, from the lime and the cement. The hand, the skin is rough. And you see in the dark and the storm or that moment when Peter is going down, it is that hand that reaches him and grabs onto him strongly. and pulls him up on the water. And they're still in the storm. And He says, "Little faith, why were you so afraid?" That's Jesus. That's real. And they walked back into the boat, and the storm stopped.

[22:45] And John, who gives a rendition of this as well, says the boat got to where it had been trying to go to all night immediately. And it says that they worshiped Him. And they said, "Truly, You are the Son of God." At some point in our lives, we have to make up our minds. We have to decide what is really real. You see, when the wind is whipping the waves into your face and you're getting hit from one direction and another, that feels real. When you're sinking in financial debt or your health is sinking and you're going under the water, that feels real, doesn't it?

[23:30] But there's something more real than that. It is the hand of Jesus that is more real. That hand formed you in your mother's womb. That hand made you as a reality. That hand made all of reality is the Creator's hand. And it is scarred like a carpenter. But the nail went through that hand. That is the hand of Jesus that's reaching out to you. And it's real, absolutely real. You know, if you're struggling with anxiety and depression, oh, that's hilarious as you struggle with anxiety and depression, because it's just a matter of degrees. If you drive with the wrong person, you're struggling with anxiety. Okay? Everybody's struggling with anxiety and depression, and sometimes it's clinical and sometimes it's bad, and sometimes it's good, but you're struggling with it.

[24:21] And as you are struggling with anxiety and depression, I want you to know that the hand of Jesus is real. And I want you to know that He is in your life and He has put all kinds of great things in your life, and you should take advantage of them. You should go see counseling. You should get in a group. You should take care of your body. You should do things that are good for your mind. But you need to understand that the foundation for all reality is Him. That any healing that comes to you, it's coming from the Healer Himself. He's the way. Those are merely means. And so He is real. And when we put our faith in Him that He's real, then everything else can make sense. You know, I have seen in my own close friendships and family, I have seen in the last couple years, one special person come to an altar who had been, and they've struggled with anxiety, was getting really bad.

[25:19] And Jesus touched that person, and it's gone. Sin is real. And I've seen another person who had wandered away from faith in Christ, and anxiety had become debilitating for this person. And they could no longer do the regular tasks of their day. But they decided that after all these years, it was time to just hit play on an audio Bible. 'Cause they had nothing but time. And after a week, the presence of God came on that person. They began to pray again after all these years, and worship. And that person still has anxiety. But now that person has Jesus and that person is doing fantastic. And have also seen people that dearly have loved Jesus for a long time, and they've fallen into anxiety or depression.

[26:12] And it's so discouraging for them. And they feel like their faith is little. I wanna let you know that when Peter's faith had failed, Jesus' hand was still there, still pulling him up. Still there. It wasn't conditional. "You failure, I'm letting you sink." No, His hand's real. So wherever you're at this morning, I wanna encourage you to put your hand in His, okay, to grab on. Just wanted, could you just do that? Can you grab on to Jesus? I had to. I get the band to come out here. I had to grapple this myself. In fact, I have a regular yearly appointment with a depression.

[27:00] Does anyone else have that? Mine's January 20th, almost. I can almost just put it in the calendar. Depends on how much sun there's been, how many cloudy days, seasonal effect disorder will get me. My favorite solution is the Caribbean, but it costs a fair bit. So, you know, I have to face it. Last time I was, let's see, this, winter was popping the vitamin D trying. That somewhat helpful. I guess maybe next time I'll shine a lamp on myself. We'll see. We'll use all ways and means, right? Whatever. But the thing is, I've been trying to pray through it, trying to read and find strength from the Lord. But it had me, and you know, from now I know it's just seasonal, it's gonna come, it's gonna go, right?

[27:45] It's not like that when you're in mental illness, when you're dealing with it, it is everything. And I was at least a week where there had been no hope, you know? And the words were dried up. There's nothing left for me. And I thought, well, I'll go to bed. There's always another day. And I woke up and it wasn't even a fresh day. Every bit of anxiety that I pulled with me and fear and depression from the previous day was with me. And you know, those mornings where you cannot get outta bed. Anyways, about six o'clock and I looked over at my wife of 30 years, make sure she was sound asleep. Okay, good. Her eyes were shut. And I had no words left, but I just remember Peter reaching his hand up. And so I put my hand up, nothing for about 10 seconds.

[28:40] And then that darkness kind of went to black, went to gray, you know, and then 60 seconds more full sunshine gone. The presence of God had helped me through that struggle. And I can't, I don't know why that was the moment. I don't know why He did it that way, but it turned out He showed up. And so whatever you're going through here this morning, as we sing, as we stand, I want you to do something physical that will help your mind and your spirit do the same thing. I want you to reach your hand up to Jesus. If you'd be so bold. Would you look silly this morning? My wife had her eyes shut.

[29:25] Thank God when I did that, would you be so bold to do so with people's eyes wide open and reach out to Jesus and just say, I know Your hand's real. I know You can help me. I know that this morning if I reach out to You, You might actually just plain old heal me. Or I know that You might help me continue to walk through this storm with You, even though it's still raging. You will keep me up. You will hold me up by Your hand. You're my reality. You're my everything. There's nothing more real than You in this morning. I reach out to You in faith.