Message 9th August 26: “Out of the Pit, and Through the Storm.”

Message - 9 August 2026 - Spearwood Uniting Church

Theme: Out of the pit and through the storm

Gen 37:1-4,12-28; Ps 105: 1-6, 16-22, 45b; Rom 10:5-15; Matt

14:22-33

My theme for this morning is “Out of the Pit and Through the Storm.”

We are going to focus particularly on two of our readings this morning: the Gospel reading from Matthew, which we have just heard, and the reading from Genesis 37.

The Genesis reading is the well-known story of Joseph and his beautiful coat. As it is quite a long reading, rather than reading the whole passage, let me remind you of the story.

Jacob’s family is deeply divided. Joseph is clearly his father’s favourite, and Jacob gives him a richly ornamented robe. Not surprisingly, this fuels the jealousy and resentment of Joseph’s brothers. Joseph then has dreams suggesting that one day his family will bow down to him, which certainly doesn’t improve family relations!

When Jacob sends Joseph to check on his brothers as they graze the flocks near Dothan, they see him coming and plot to kill him.

Reuben persuades them not to shed his blood, intending to rescue him later. So instead, they strip Joseph of his special robe and throw him into an empty cistern—a pit.

Then a caravan of traders passes by on its way to Egypt, and Judah suggests that rather than killing Joseph, they should sell him.

And that is what they do.

Joseph is sold for twenty pieces of silver and taken away to Egypt. His brothers then deceive their father into believing that Joseph has been killed by a wild animal.

There is a certain irony here, isn’t there?

Jacob—the man who deceived his own father Isaac into believing that he was his brother Esau—is now going to be deceived by his own children into believing that Joseph is dead.

Life has a way of fracturing our expectations.

One moment Joseph is wearing his beautiful coat, secure in the love of his father, and the next he is sitting at the bottom of a dry pit, listening to the voices of his brothers deciding what to do with him.

And in Matthew, one moment the disciples are doing exactly what Jesus told them to do—crossing the lake—and the next they are being battered by waves in the darkness, wondering whether they are ever going to reach the other side.

Pits and storms.

They are two very different pictures, but they describe experiences that most of us understand.

Those times when life suddenly changes.

One phone call, One diagnosis, One accident, One conversation, One unexpected opportunity.

One minute everything seems settled, and the next we find ourselves somewhere we never imagined we would be.

Most of us like certainty. We like knowing what tomorrow will bring. We like our routines. We like our plans.

Yet the Bible is full of people whose lives changed dramatically and who found themselves somewhere they had never expected to be.

Joseph in a pit.

The disciples in a storm.

Peter sinking beneath the waves.

None of them knew exactly what was going to happen next. And yet, through it all, God was at work. That is the good news woven through all our readings today. God’s presence is not simply a nice theological idea for the good times. God meets us precisely in the pits and storms of life.

Joseph in the pit

Imagine for a moment what it must have been like for Joseph. One day he is the beloved

son. The next he is rejected. Abandoned. Sold like property. Everything he trusted has disappeared.

Surely Joseph must have wondered, “Where is God?”

And yet the remarkable thing about Joseph’s story is that God has not abandoned him.

Joseph cannot see that from the bottom of the pit. He cannot possibly know that Egypt

will eventually become the place where God will use him to save countless lives—including the lives of the very brothers who sold him.

Years later Joseph will say to them:

“You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.”

That does not mean that what his brothers did was good.

It wasn't.

God does not need us to pretend that cruelty is kindness, that suffering does not hurt, or that evil somehow becomes good simply because God can redeem it.

Rather, Joseph’s story tells us that human evil cannot finally defeat the purposes of

God.

Psalm 105 looks back on Joseph’s story from a different perspective and says:

“He sent a man before them—Joseph, who was sold as a slave.”

Isn’t that extraordinary? Genesis says his brothers sold him. The Psalm says God sent him.

From one perspective, Joseph is the victim of his brothers’ jealousy. From another, God

is quietly working through circumstances Joseph could not possibly understand at the time.

And perhaps that is one of the hardest lessons of faith:

We often only recognise what God has been doing when we look backwards.

While we are in the pit, all we can see are the walls of the pit.

While we are in the storm, all we can see are the waves.

It is often only years later that we can look back and recognise that somehow God was

present.

Perhaps losing one job unexpectedly opened the way to another.

Perhaps a move we never wanted to make brought people into our lives who became

lifelong friends.

Perhaps a difficult season made us more compassionate towards someone else's suffering.

Perhaps something we would never have chosen became the place where our faith grew deeper.

That does not mean God caused every painful thing that happened to us.

But it does mean that there is no pit so deep that God cannot enter it, and no

circumstance so broken that God cannot work within it.

And that brings us to the disciples.

Through the storm

Jesus has just fed more than five thousand people.

The crowds have gone, and Jesus sends the disciples ahead of him across the Sea of

Galilee while he stays behind to pray.

There is one little practical detail that always amuses me. Jesus sends them off in the

boat but apparently says nothing about how he intends to catch up with them. There

were no late trains around Galilee, and the airport was presumably closed due to fog!

But off they go.

And while Jesus is praying, the weather changes.

The wind rises., the waves grow, The boat is battered.

And these are not inexperienced sailors. Some of these men are fishermen. They know

this lake. Yet they are struggling.

There is something comforting in that.

Sometimes we can be exactly where Jesus has told us to be and still encounter a storm.

Difficulty is not necessarily a sign that we have taken the wrong road.

Sometimes we can be faithfully doing what God has called us to do and still find

ourselves rowing against the wind, Trying harder, Working longer, Praying faithfully and yet making what feels like very little progress.

Perhaps that sometimes describes the church as well.

Matthew was writing to Christians who knew something about uncertainty and

opposition. The little boat on the water became a powerful picture of the church—sent

out into the world without the physical presence of Jesus, sometimes battered by

circumstances, wondering whether it would ever reach the other side.

Perhaps we know something of that feeling.

We look at declining numbers.

An ageing congregation.

A changing society.

Fewer people identifying with the church.

And we can begin to wonder, “Are we going to make it to the other side?”

And then, in the darkest part of the night, Jesus comes.

Not around the storm. Not waiting safely on the shore. Through it.

He comes walking across the very thing the disciples fear.

And they are terrified. “It’s a ghost!” Sometimes we can be so overwhelmed by the

storm that we fail to recognise Jesus when he comes to us.

But Jesus calls out:

“Take heart. It is I. Do not be afraid.”

Those words “It is I” are particularly significant.

The Greek can be translated “I AM.”

It echoes the name of God revealed to Moses at the burning bush.

Jesus is saying, in effect:

I am here.

I am with you.

The storm does not have the final word.

You are not alone.

And then Peter does something extraordinary.

He says:

“Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”

And Jesus gives him one word:

“Come.”

So Peter climbs out of the boat.

I think we are sometimes a little unfair to Peter. We remember that he sank. But before

he sank— he walked.

For however long it lasted, Peter did something impossible because he trusted the

voice of Jesus enough to put one foot over the side of the boat.

The other eleven stayed exactly where they were.

Peter stepped out.

And perhaps there are times when Jesus calls us to do the same. To leave what is

comfortable. To loosen our grip on what is familiar. To try something new. To forgive

someone. To begin a new ministry. To speak to someone about our faith. To welcome

someone we might otherwise overlook. To let go of something that has served its

purpose. To trust God with a future that we cannot control.

And perhaps this is particularly important for the church.

Sometimes our boat is not a bad place.

It has kept us safe for a long time. We know where everything is.

We know how things work. We know where we sit!

But sometimes Jesus stands beyond what is familiar and says:

“Come.”

Not because everything outside the boat is safe.

Not because there won't be waves.

But because he is there.

When Peter sinks

Peter steps out and walks towards Jesus. But then he notices the wind. He sees the

waves. He becomes frightened. And he begins to sink.

Isn’t that so very human? We start well. We trust God. We step out. And then we look

around.

We notice the bills. The diagnosis. The uncertainty. The criticism. The loneliness. The

size of the task.

And suddenly the waves look much bigger than Jesus.

Peter then prays one of the shortest—and perhaps one of the best—prayers in the

whole Bible:

“Lord, save me!”

No carefully prepared words.

No polished theology.

Just honest dependence.

And Matthew says:

“Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him.”

Immediately.

Not when Peter had regained his faith. Not when Peter had explained himself. Not when

Peter had promised to do better next time.

Immediately.

And this is where Paul's words from Romans fit so beautifully with the Gospel:

“The word is near you.”

And:

“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

Peter calls.

Jesus saves.

Not because Peter’s faith is perfect.

Clearly it isn't.

But because Jesus is faithful.

That is an important distinction.

Faith is not confidence in ourselves.

Faith is confidence in Christ.

Faith is not believing that we will never sink.

Faith is knowing whose name to call when we do.

Trusting an unknown future

During the Second World War, Corrie ten Boom and her family hid Jewish people from

the Nazis in their home in the Netherlands.

Eventually they were discovered and arrested.

Corrie’s father died.

Her beloved sister Betsie died in Ravensbrück concentration camp.

Corrie lived through circumstances that most of us can barely imagine.

Yet after the war she travelled the world sharing the Gospel and speaking about the

faithfulness of God.

She is often remembered for the words:

“Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”

She could say that because she had lived it.

She knew what it was to discover God in the darkest of places.

Joseph knew it too. So did Peter. So did those frightened disciples in the boat. And

perhaps, in different ways, so do many of us.

We may not know the future. But we know something of the character of the God who

holds it.

The abundance of God's presence

There is also a lovely connection between this Gospel and the story immediately before

it.

Last week we heard of Jesus feeding more than five thousand people. There was bread

in abundance. Everyone ate. Everyone was satisfied. And there were baskets left over.

But today Jesus gives his disciples another kind of abundance.

His presence.

Sometimes God calms the storm.

Sometimes the storm continues for a while.

Sometimes God changes our circumstances.

Sometimes God gives us the strength to walk through circumstances we would never

have chosen.

But the greatest gift God gives us is not always an explanation.

It is not always an escape.

It is himself.

Joseph discovered that. Peter discovered that. Paul discovered that. Corrie ten Boom

discovered that. And Christians throughout the centuries have discovered it too.

God’s abundance is not simply having plenty.

It is discovering that Christ is enough.

His grace is enough. His presence is enough. His love is enough.

Out of the pit and through the storm

Joseph could not see God’s plan from the bottom of the pit.

Peter could not see Jesus properly when his eyes were fixed on the waves.

The disciples could not see hope when they were struggling against the wind.

Yet in every story, God was already there.

Perhaps some of us today feel as though we are sitting in Joseph's pit. Perhaps others

are in Peter's storm. Perhaps some of us simply feel tired from rowing against the wind.

And into all those circumstances Jesus speaks:

“Take heart.

It is I.

Do not be afraid.”

And perhaps for some of us there is another word:

“Come.”

Take the next step.

Not because the sea is calm.

Not because you know what will happen.

Not because your faith is perfect.

But because the One who calls you is already standing on the waves.

In the end, faith is not about having all the answers.

It is about trusting the One who holds tomorrow.

For the God who was with Joseph in the pit, the God who met Peter on the water,

the God proclaimed by Paul, is the same God who walks beside us today.

So whatever pit you may find yourself in, remember: God has not abandoned you.

Whatever storm may be battering your boat, look again across the waves.

The figure coming towards you is not something to fear.

It is Jesus, coming through the very chaos that frightens you and saying:

“Take heart. It is I. Do not be afraid.”

And when your courage fails—when you step out in faith but notice the wind, feel the

waves and begin to sink—do not be ashamed.

Peter sank too. He did not have time for a carefully worded prayer.

He simply cried:

“Lord, save me!”

And immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him.

Perhaps that is the word we most need to hear today.

Faith does not mean that we will never be afraid.

Faith does not mean that we will never stumble, doubt or sink.

Faith means knowing where to turn when we do.

From Joseph in the pit to Peter in the waves, the message is the same:

God has not let go of us.

So when you cannot see the way ahead, trust him. When the wind is against you, listen

for his voice. When he calls you out of the boat, have courage to take the next step. And

when you begin to sink, call his name.

For he is faithful. He is near. And he will not abandon us.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Let’s take a minute to ponder on what God has spoken to us through his message.

Prayer:

Gracious God,

thank you for your Word and for the reminder that you are with us in every season of life.

Help us to step out in faith, to listen for your call, and to follow wherever you lead,

knowing that we never walk alone.

May what we have heard today take root in our hearts and be lived out in our lives.

In the name of Jesus, our Saviour and Lord.

Amen.