I. Very evidently the first thing here suggested is that the way of duty is not always easy. In saying that I do not allude to the inner difficulties which we have frequently to overcome before we enter upon the path of obedience, but rather to those hindrances which come upon us from without, while we are honestly trying to go forward in the course which, believing it to be commanded us by God, we have begun. Let any one set out to do anything positive or aggressive for Christ, and all experience declares that before he has gone far he will have to face a contrary wind.
II. Now, what shall we say to sustain ourselves amid an experience like this? (1) This, at least, we may take to ourselves for comfort namely, that we are not responsible for the wind. That is a matter outside of us and beyond our control, and for all such things we are not to be blamed. The contrary wind is in God's providence, and is to be made the best of; nay, so soon as we recognize that it is in God's providence, we will make the best of it. (2) The attention required for bearing up against the contrary wind may take us, for the time being, out of the way of some subtle temptation. In general, all such adverse providences have operated in keeping us nearer the mercy-seat, and in leading us to depend more implicitly or, as the hymn has put it, to "lean" more "hardly" on the support of the Lord. (3) There may be much in contending with a contrary wind to prepare us for higher service in the cause of Christ. Our Lord withdrew to the mountain to give the disciples a foretaste of what should come when He went up to heaven; and I have a firm conviction that much of that persistence of the apostles in the face of persecution, which so strongly impresses us as we read the early Chapter s of the Acts of the Apostles, had its root in the remembrance of what they had learned in this night's contending with adverse winds on the Galilean lake. This was one of their first experiments in walking alone, and it helped to steady them afterwards. (4) As we bend to our oars while the wind is contrary, we may take to ourselves the comfort that the Lord Jesus is closely watching us.
W. M. Taylor, Contrary Winds and other Sermons,p. 7.
References: Matthew 14:24. T. Birkett Dover, The Ministry of Mercy,p. 116. Matthew 14:26. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xvi., No. 957. Matthew 14:27. W. F. Hook, Sermons on the Miracles,vol. ii., p. 1; J. Hiles Hitchens, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xiii., p. 203; J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes,4th series, p. 86; J. C. Jones, Studies in St. Matthew,p. 215.Matthew 14:28. Spurgeon, Three Hundred Outlines on the New Testament,p. 22.Matthew 14:28; Matthew 14:29. Preacher's Monthly,vol. vii., p. 95; J. Keble, Sermons for the Christian Year,vol. iii., p. 221; J. M. Neale, Occasional Sermons,p. 144.