Lord, Save Me: Peter Sinking and the Christ Who Lifts (Matthew 14:22-33)

It is somewhere between three and six in the morning, the fourth watch of the night. A fishing boat sits in the middle of the Sea of Galilee, tossed with waves. The wind has been against the disciples for hours.

Then Peter climbs over the side and walks on the water toward Jesus. For a few steps it works. Then he looks at the wind.

And he starts going under.

“And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away. And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone. But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary. And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear. But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid. And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? And when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased. Then they that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God.” (Matthew 14:22-33)

A sinking man does not make speeches. Peter had three words: “Lord, save me.” And the Bible says immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him.

Here is my question for you before we go any further. Are you sinking? You might be the only one in the world who knows it. You might be smiling on the surface while something underneath is pulling you down.

A hymn written by a man who had watched people sink

The hymns we sing are often born out of deep trial. “Love Lifted Me” is one of them.

It was written in 1912. James Rowe wrote the words, and a church organist named Howard Smith wrote the music. Smith suffered from crippling rheumatoid arthritis, and still he worked closely with Rowe on the melody. According to Rowe’s daughter, the two of them built it line by line in Rowe’s home. Rowe paced the floor and hummed while Smith played the piano and jotted down the notes.

Rowe had come to the United States from England and worked grueling jobs. He spent a decade on a New York railroad and served as an inspector for the Hudson River Humane Society. Along the way he saw a great deal of human suffering, brokenness, and despair. He went on to write over nineteen thousand hymns. That’s a lot.

What burdened him was people sinking deep in sin, unable to save themselves by their own strength. So he took Matthew 14 and Matthew 8 and made the drowning man a picture of every one of us:

I was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore, very deeply stained within, sinking to rise no more. But the Master of the sea heard my despairing cry, from the waters lifted me, now safe am I.

If you have been genuinely converted, you know that song from the inside. You were brought to the end of yourself, “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1), and you threw yourself on the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ. He lifted you out of the waters of sin and their grip.

But salvation is the beginning, not the ending. It is the beginning of a relationship. The same Christ who lifted you once keeps lifting you through every trial and crisis, by the power of the Holy Spirit living inside you.

So that is what I want to do here. I want to lift Him up.

“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” (John 12:32)

1. The abysmal waters of sin

“I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.” (Psalms 69:2) “For mine iniquities are gone over mine head: as an heavy burden they are too heavy for me. My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness. I am troubled; I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning all the day long. For my loins are filled with a loathsome disease: and there is no soundness in my flesh. I am feeble and sore broken: I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart.” (Psalms 38:4-8)

That is the condition of every lost person. It does not matter whether he is out sinning openly in the world or sitting in church every week without ever having been saved. Deep down there is a heart of unease, a heart with no peace.

You know how it starts. As we grow up, we watch our parents and the people around us, and we notice an emptiness inside that we cannot fill. We look for somebody who has the answer. Sometimes we watch professing Christians who say they have it, and something is missing in their lives. There is no joy in them. Lost people pick up on that.

And it only gets worse. The world has its moments of happiness, but true joy is found only in Christ. Look around you. Marriages are dissolving. Parents and children are busting apart. Kids raised in church turn their backs on God the minute they move out of the house. We live in a world that hates God and wishes He had no part in anything.

If you have never truly been converted, you know what I am talking about. The pressures of life overwhelm you. You are looking for answers, mostly in the wrong places.

But do not hand this section off to the lost person beside you. If you are saved, you still live in this thing called the flesh. If you give it the preeminence, it will want to be pampered, worshipped, listened to, and in control. It is proud and full of self. Let it run things and neglect your inner walk with God, and you will not be joyful. You will not even be happy, because deep down you will know you are not right with God. The Holy Spirit is being grieved.

Outside of walking with the Lord, life is short moments of what I call pseudo-happiness, a false happiness. Those moments get fewer, and the anxiety and despair get stronger. So we reach for anything that will ease the pressure: alcohol, drugs, the craze to pile up money and power. Then narcissism grows and relationships fail.

I am going to tell you something you already know. Nothing and no one will make you happy like the Lord. Happiness lasts a moment. Joy is forever.

You can be sinking and still smiling

“The heart knoweth his own bitterness; and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy.” (Proverbs 14:10)

That verse describes the person who is sad and sorrowful inside and builds a front to convince everybody that things are fine. The stranger cannot see what is going on in there. Only God can. If you fake happy, most folks will believe you.

“Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful; and the end of that mirth is heaviness.” (Proverbs 14:13)

You can come to worship and sing every song while something inside is off. There is a heaviness that nothing on the outside can fix. Your activity, your attendance, and the things you do or don’t do cannot set your inner walk with God right. If you try to measure your spirituality by them, you will come up empty.

“A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance: but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.” (Proverbs 15:13)

If your heart is merry, your face is going to show it. I love it when we sing “I’m so happy, and here’s the reason why,” but sometimes we sing it with a face like a funeral. I always thought that when you were happy about something, you smiled.

You can only keep up a front for so long. The real you is going to come bubbling to the surface.

So ask yourself what makes you happy. Don’t give me the spiritual answer you have learned to rattle off. Are you full of joy?

No soap is strong enough

“For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord GOD.” (Jeremiah 2:22)

Nitre and soap were the strongest cleaning agents of the ancient world. God says that even those cannot touch it. Sin is marked on the soul in a way that no outward washing can reach. No amount of cleaning yourself up on the outside can clean you on the inside.

Over the years, my wife and I have counseled people when pastors from other churches asked us to help. Some of them carried a terrible shame over things that were not even their fault. They told us they felt so filthy that no amount of scrubbing could take it away. If outward scrubbing cannot lift a shame like that, it will never wash away a heart full of sin. Reforming, fixing, and changing your habits will not cleanse it.

Only the blood of Christ will.

“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7)

The stain goes deeper than we like to admit:

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.” (Jeremiah 17:9-10)

King David wrote this after he was found out, after he took Bathsheba and had Uriah the Hittite killed:

“Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” (Psalms 51:5)

And the Lord Jesus said it Himself:

“And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.” (Mark 7:20-23)

That means women too. Nobody is exempt. Outside of Christ, there is no rising above that cesspool.

Maybe you have been to church and made a profession of faith, but deep down you know you are lost. Maybe you have never been much of a churchgoer, and God is showing you right now that you are not saved. Either way, here is the good news. God is still in the soul-saving business. He wants to reach down, pardon your transgressions, and adopt you into His family.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.” (John 3:16-17) “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.” (John 15:3)

2. “Lord, save me”: the rescue nobody else could make

But the Master of the sea heard my despairing cry.

Peter was already a saved man when he went under. We usually apply this passage to salvation, and the picture fits. When a lost sinner finally grasps that he is drowning in sin, the fear of God grips his soul and he cries out for mercy.

Some people never see it. I was on the phone recently with someone who has been witnessing to a man who is a hundred and six years old. That man insists he is not a sinner. No matter how they try, he cannot see it, because the god of this world has blinded him.

There may be people drowning in sin in your own pew who do not even know it. But if you know it, if you feel the fear of God beginning to grip you, you have only to cry out to Him for mercy. He will forgive you and pardon you as you trust the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. He did it for Peter immediately.

I remember the night He did it for me. It was September of 1985, in Adelanto, California, in a studio apartment, number 123. If you have never lived in one, a studio apartment is one room with a bathroom in one corner and a kitchen in the other. I remember exactly where I was sitting. My wife was sitting right next to me. I could not take it anymore. I was absolutely terrified, and I went to the Lord, and He reached down and saved my soul.

The joy was overwhelming. I had to tell somebody.

Some men got saved with us recently, and they did not shrug and mention it. They ran around hugging people and telling everybody. There were tears all over the place. If you can relate, you can appreciate.

If you are saved, hear this too. The One who lifted you out of the waters of sin, who took eternal damnation off you and gave you a new heart, is the same One who carries you now.

“He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.” (Psalms 40:2) “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” (Romans 8:37)

The Son of God has you by the hand

Look at what happened next. Jesus caught Peter. He lovingly rebuked him for his little faith. Then the two of them walked back to the ship together, and the moment they climbed in, the wind ceased. The men in that boat worshipped Him: “Of a truth thou art the Son of God.”

Try to wrap your mind around that. He is God the Son, the second person of the Trinity. And He would save such a worm as I, lift me up, and walk with me holding my hand.

Think of a mom or dad holding the hand of a little one who wants to dart off and run astray. What do they do? They squeeze a little tighter. That little boy or girl knows something by that grip. I’m secure. Dad’s got my hand, and he’s not letting go.

The Father has my hand. The Holy Spirit has sealed me “unto the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:30). My Savior “loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). Awesome does not even begin to describe Him.

The second verse of the hymn says, All my heart to Him I give, ever to Him I’ll cling, in His blessed presence live, ever His praises sing.

So do you sing His praises? Do you ever catch yourself humming a hymn at work or at the store? Or do you blend into the crowd and walk through Walmart looking as miserable as everybody else? I am told it takes more effort to frown than to smile.

What are we afraid of? That somebody will accuse us of having a good day? That they might ask why we are so happy, and then we would have to tell them? That is exactly what you are supposed to do: give “a reason of the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15).

You might say, “Pastor, you don’t know what I’ve got going on.” You’re right, I don’t. He does. Isn’t He still worthy of praise? Praise Him anyhow. A brother I know likes to come up and say, “Hey, you’ve got a smile in your pocket.” Use it.

“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1-2)

That is how you lay the weight aside and run the race: looking unto Jesus. Present your body “a living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1) every day. Walk with Him. Talk with Him. Lift Him up, magnify Him, and glorify Him, the way the Holy Spirit lifts up the Son and points us to the Father.

3. The soul winner’s plea: be lifted today

The last verse of the hymn turns from testimony to invitation:

Souls in danger, look above, Jesus completely saves. He will lift you by His love out of the angry waves. He’s the Master of the sea, billows His will obey. He your Savior wants to be. Be saved today.

You may be asking, “How can I be saved?”

Repent. Come to the end of yourself. Admit you cannot save yourself, and surrender to Him as Lord. Turn in your heart from sin to Christ. It does not matter who you are.

“All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” (John 6:37)

Receive Him.

“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:” (John 1:12)

Then rejoice. Repentance is a one-time thing for salvation. Receiving Christ is a one-time thing. Rejoicing goes on forevermore.

You ask what that looks like. Have you ever gotten excited about anything? Are you excited that He saved you?

“But I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. I will sing unto the LORD, because he hath dealt bountifully with me.” (Psalms 13:5-6)

Paul wrote to the church at Philippi, where two women, Euodias and Syntyche, were feuding (Philippians 4:2). They could not get past themselves. Paul told them, in so many words, to get over it, forgive each other, become friends again, and go on serving the Lord. Then he wrote this:

“Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice. Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.” (Philippians 4:4-5)

The Lord is at hand. He could come back right now. Would you meet Him with joy, or with shame and sadness? Only you can answer that.

“Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.” (1 Peter 1:8-9) “I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.” (Isaiah 61:10)

The Master of the sea still makes the storm a calm

Matthew records another night on the water, and this time Jesus was asleep in the boat:

“And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him. And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep. And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish. And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. But the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!” (Matthew 8:23-27)

He will do the same for your soul. He will calm it with the knowledge that your sins are forgiven and that you belong to Him.

“He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven.” (Psalms 107:29-30)

An old hymn puts it this way: My soul in sad exile was out on life’s sea, so burdened with sin and distress, till I heard a sweet voice saying, “Make Me your choice,” and I entered the haven of rest.

If you are lost and feeling uneasy right now, that is the Holy Spirit convicting you. He is not being mean about it. He is convicting you because He loves you and wants to save you. When you trust Christ, the Spirit moves in and gives life to your dead spirit.

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Peter had three words, and they were enough. They are still enough.

Are you sinking? Cry out. “Lord, save me.”

He will.

Adapted from a message preached from Matthew 14:22-33.