In the Bible, there are key passages of scripture that tell our story.  When I was with you on my second week, I preached this passage of scripture of Peter walking on water.  I told you then that this was one of my favorite Bible stories and that I felt like Christ through our ministry was inviting us out onto the water for a walk.  We have now been doing that together for just six weeks short of four years.  Recently, I felt the Lord taking me back to this passage for a second look.  Let me remind you of the key moments in the story and then take you to the new angle that God has shown me over the past few weeks.

        The first reminder is a fact of life that we don’t like, namely that life is full of challenges and storms.  The Sea of Galilee is in a horseshoe shape in which the wind comes down through the gap and the top and turns what is a beautiful serene lake into a fearsome death trap.  The change can come with little warning.  Life is like that.  The myth that some prosperity gospel preachers share is that if you are in the center of God’s will, then everything prospers and goes well.  The truth is that following Christ will not exempt you from life’s storms.  In fact, it may create more of them. 

        Second, notice that, in the storm, there is someone coming toward you.  At first, the disciples thought that it was the death angel coming to them in the fog and they cried out in terror.  But then, through the fog, the wind and the howling waves they discover that it is Jesus – walking on the water.  Only Matthew tells about Peter’s stroll on the water, but all the gospels tell about Jesus walking on the water and say how the disciples were amazed that the wind and the waves obeyed him.  So it’s important that in our storms and challenges we do two things first.  First, we look for the coming Christ.  The bible says, “If you will seek me with all your heart, you will surely find me.”  Jesus said to his disciples in John 14:18, “I will not leave you helpless.  I will come to you.”  In two weeks, we will begin the season of Advent, which literally means “coming.”  We prepare for four weeks for the coming of Christ.  Didn’t he come more than 2,000 years ago?   Indeed, he did.  But Advent is about preparing ourselves to receive the coming Christ in a whole new way.   As today’s scripture lesson invites us to see Christ coming toward us, it also invites us to see him as the master of the storm.  We need not face our challenges and storms alone.  And he is the master, not our storms.  The disciples thought this was the end for them when it was really just a new beginning for them in what it meant to follow Jesus.

         The third reminder is God inspires dreams in the hearts of people.  In the book of Acts at Pentecost, Peter quotes Joel saying, “Your sons and daughters will prophesy.  Your young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams.”  Male and female, old and young.  That’s pretty inclusive.  From cover to cover, the Bible is full of visionaries and dreamers.  Peter, in our story, sees what Jesus does and he wants to do what Jesus did.  The Bible says that “God gives us the desire of our hearts.”  A friend of mine said to me this past week, “People like you are driven to be significant and do things that are significant all the time.”  I said, “That’s kind of sick.  You can’t be significant all the time.”  He said, “Yes, but you still are wired that way.”  I shared that with Tina and she said, “I’m like that, too.”  Most of us are.  It was Peter’s desire to be significant and to be part of something bigger than he had been before that made him want to go out on that stormy water. 

         This point is where many commentators criticize Peter, the whole purpose of the story is to show Peter the sufficiency of Christ when we do stupid and reckless things.  While Christ does bail us out of many mistakes and foolishness, that is not the purpose of this story.   When Peter’s eyes got big and he asked for Jesus to let him go out on the water, Jesus said one word, “Come.”   In so doing, he was giving Peter, as well as you and me, a picture of what life could be.  Jesus said in John 14, “Greater things than I have done will you do, for I am going to the Father.”   He was invited to the edge of unpredictability, to the edge of risk, to a walk of faith. 

       It is here that I insert God’s fresh word for me in this story, one that may also speak a fresh word to you.  John Ortberg has a wonderful little book entitled, If You Want to Walk on Water, You Have to Get Out of the Boat.  While I was down with the flu about ten days ago, the Lord used it to get my attention and showed me some ways I had been resisting getting out of the boat.  How many of you have learned that people see you differently than they did when you were younger (the teenage “wiz kid”, the up-and-comer, the established leader, the “old goat”)?  How many of you have learned that people also see you differently when you change positions (the employee becomes a manager, the teacher becomes a principal, the pastor becomes a senior pastor or worse, a district superintendent)?  On August 13, 1996, the Lord rocked my world.  I was moved from a mid-sized congregation in Odessa to a large congregation in downtown El Paso .  In the mid-sized congregation, you could be close to everybody and at that time we were just starting our family.  The church was ready to grow with our growing family.  We could all be “up-and-comers” together.  In El Paso , we were not seen the same way at all.  I was to be the leader of a staff of twelve in the role of church CEO.  My job was to cast the vision, administrate the church and above all, raise the budget.  And for ten years I have fought that change.  I wanted to stay the “up and comer.”  During that time, my hair has gotten grayer and Tina and I now have teenagers.  Younger peers in ministry begin statements with, “In your generation, they…”  I look at them and think, “Is my name Methuselah?”  So I have been fighting my change of age and change of role.  I wear a brace on my left knee that reminds me that in the gym I have have been fighting my change of age and role.  Yet, here is the lesson God had for me in a question, “Why, Will are you inviting churches to open up to a new day when you have not been willing to do so yourself?”  “Why are wishing to be what you once were when the flow of my Spirit wishes to do something new?”  “Furthermore, you are having to do these things and people see you this way anyhow, so why not enjoy it?”  Then, I began to understand why people sometimes are so resistant to change in the church.  They have been blessed by what they have done in the past and don’t want to give that up.  They would rather just try to recapture what they had than go through discovering what God would do new in them.  So then the Lord says, “What would you like to do?”

         “I’d like to successfully lead a church into multi-campus ministry and raise up a new generation of Christian leaders that will change their world.   I’ll quit fighting you and become new for this era of my life.  But Lord, even if I’m not in my 20s or thirties anymore, I’d still like to walk on water.”  And I saw the Lord gesture to me, “Come.”   

And that leads me to ask you a question, “How old can you be to walk on water?”  See I think that just as there are people in this sanctuary who are in their 20s and want to make their mark and life and be part of something great, there are also some in their thirties, and their forties and their fifties and their sixties and seventies and eighties and nineties.  The young ones may strut on the water and the middle ones may be a little more careful and the older ones may do so with a bit of a hitch, but they still walk on water with a shine in their eyes.  And each time we look to the Christ, he gestures our way and says, “Come on out.” 

        And there’s one thing common to water-walking.  You only stay up when you have your eyes on the master and not on the waves of the storm.  That night of my fresh encounter with water-walking was Wednesday the night I wasn’t here for the Master’s Program.  I knew Tina would be home soon wanting to watch the results of “Dancing with the Stars.”  (GRAPHIC of Emmit Smith).  Here is the picture of Emmit Smith, the latest winner, along side his professional partner, the professional who was also next to last season’s winner.  Apparently, the key to winning is how the amateurs with their gifts will join them with the gifts of the professionals, but even more how they will let the professionals develop them.  And so they dance, head up, expressing the mood of the dance with confidence and with a smile.  Sometimes, they are hand in hand and often they may clear across the dance floor from each other - but they are still together.   So who are you this morning?  Only you know the storms of your life and the storms of what it means to follow Jesus at this stage of your life.  But who are you?  You are a water-walker and you walk with the STAR, even Jesus Christ; head up, sharing the Savior, playing your God-given role, with a confident shine and a joyous smile.  And you never outgrow walking on water with Jesus.  Thanks be to God, AMEN.