In episode 123 of the “No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe” podcast, host Greg Ryan continues a series on faith and hope, focusing on the New Testament narrative of Jesus walking on water. He opens by clarifying his humor about doctors and emphasizing that his purpose is to motivate listeners to engage the Word of God, combat spiritual fear, and grow in faith. Ryan explains that fear and faith cannot coexist; he repeatedly cites Jesus’ commands to “do not be afraid” in Mark 6, Matthew, and John, arguing that believers must destroy fear to experience the perfect will of God. He examines the disciples’ panic during the storm, the significance of Peter’s positive response—asking Jesus to command him onto the water—and how that illustrates active, childlike faith. Ryan stresses that the Gospel accounts, while similar, each highlight different aspects of the event, reinforcing the need for a positive, obedient response to Jesus. Throughout, he interweaves personal confession of imperfection, encouragement to persist despite mistakes, and a prayer that binds fear and releases faith. The episode concludes with a preview of the next discussion on childlike faith and an invitation to listeners to keep studying Scripture daily.
Welcome to episode 123, In the Beginning Was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the Word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.
Welcome to episode 123. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to continue on the lesson that I was talking about yesterday, which is actually episode 122 for those of you keeping score at home. Now I want to clarify something that I said on the previous episode about doctors and that I want to make sure that everybody understands that I am not against doctors. I have a distorted sense of humor, and I've got to talk about— because they have a medical practice, you know, lawyers have a law practice. In my distorted sense of humor, when I was playing sports, we hated practice, but we loved being in the game. My thought is, hey, let's get these guys in the game. Why are they still practicing? When are they ever going to get in the game? And so that is, again, this is my sense of humor. It has nothing against doctors. I do believe that the Bible says that there is a good and acceptable and perfect will of God, and I believe the perfect will of God is found when the just shall live by faith. And I don't think any of us, present company, this podcast guy included, I don't think that I walk every step of my day in faith. I still have a boatload of unbelief. I'd love to tell you that I read this word and it just busts alive, it just comes alive, and I I can see it just plainly, and I can just start speaking to mountains. And as I'm walking or driving, these mountains just move out of my way. That is so far from what's going on in my life, but I can tell you with the utmost of confidence that I apply the Word of God the best I can. Again, I want to tell you, and the reason I'm here, it's not because I think I'm all that. It's because I just got sick to death of seeing Satan just having his way with believers and people that I love, and myself included. And I'm like, why, why isn't anybody talking about this? I think it's just because we have this fear that we, you know, what if I say something wrong? Well, I can promise you I'm gonna say something wrong, and I hope I don't offend you, and I hope that you can hear my heart. That, and that's why I constantly say, look, get in the Word of God. I make a horrible Holy Spirit. My job as a teacher of the Word of God is just to motivate you, to inspire you to go to the same book that I go to every day. That's why I jump up and down, I wave my arms if you can see me. You need to be in the Word of God. The only way to develop your relationship with Jesus and God is to be in his Word. And the only way to build your faith— faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word of God— that's why I'm talking about faith, I'm talking about grace, And instead of just having words, I want us to have pictures. I want us to have examples. And I want to go into— and if it's just me rattling my teeth, then, you know, you're gonna, you're gonna get tired of it. And you probably already are. And I— God bless you if you've been on this podcast from the beginning, and I want to thank you. It's a big encouragement. I'm talking to people all the time now that have listened, and they enjoy it. But I'm under no illusion that I am the mouthpiece of God. I mean, I am nowhere near that. What I am is just a regular ordinary guy who serves or follows after an extraordinary God. And I just try my best to show you how I'm using imperfect action to follow after a perfect Savior. And I think— and I just want to encourage you that if you can see me doing it, me stumbling through life and kind of pulling the curtain back a little bit on what's going on in my life, and I'm telling you how I'm doing this or what I did or how I messed up, I really, I haven't done everything. In fact, today I haven't even done everything perfect. I've made some mistakes this day, but here's what I'm choosing to do. I'm choosing not to let the mistakes stop me from moving on. So I'm here to encourage you with the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good, the acceptable, and perfect will of God. And very rarely do I hit the perfect will of God. I'm probably walking around the good and acceptable most of my days. And I'm working towards the perfect will, but it takes time, it takes effort, it takes messing up. I'm just here to tell you, you're gonna have to mess up. You're gonna have to break some eggs to make some omelets, guys. So don't get discouraged when you see some broken eggs laying around and your life looks like it may be kind of falling apart a little bit. Just get in the word and say, God, help me with this. Holy Spirit, you're right there. You're never going to leave me nor forsake me. Let's get busy. Let's get in the Word. Let's believe what the Word says, and let's ask for help. It's okay. And we're going to talk about— in the next episode, we're going to talk about the childlike faith and why it's so difficult, I believe, to become— to come at God like a little child. And since I talked about walking on water and how I failed miserably, I want to use the walking on water example as how we can use our faith and how Jesus required a positive response. And I just want to look to the Bible again. When I'm looking, as I'm reading and I'm studying faith and I'm studying hope and grace, and I start reading the gospel with that on my mind, you know, there's always something that you may be struggling with or something you're trying to get a grasp of. And that's why I say when you start reading the, the word, that's why when you go back and reread it with these things on your mind, with grace and faith and hope and love and peace and all of this. When you're starting to think about all of the stuff that we've been talking about, when you go back and read the gospels and kind of try to see how Jesus required a positive response— and I want you to look at that when you read the Bible, when you read how Jesus, when he asked people questions, he asked people questions not to try to get the answer, but he needed to get them into a position to, to receive. I believe Jesus requires a positive response. Let's look at where Jesus was walking on the water one of the stories, and it's in Mark 6, and let's go to 48. Then he saw them straining at rowing, for the wind was against them. Now about the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking by on the sea, and would have passed by them. And when they saw him walking on the sea, they supposed it was a ghost, and cried out: For they saw him, and were troubled. But immediately he talked with them, and said to them, Be of good cheer, it is I. Do not be afraid. Now I've talked multiple times about our anchor scripture that's found in Mark 5, and remember we, we'd already talked about this in a previous episode where Jesus, as soon as he heard the word that was spoken, he said to the ruler of the synagogue, do not be afraid, only believe. And then you go to— now that, that was in chapter 5 in Mark, same author or same writer You know, the Holy Spirit is the author, but the same writer. Now chapter 6 is where Jesus was walking on water. And on chapter 6, verse 50, for they saw, they all saw him and were troubled. But immediately he talked with them and said to them, be of good cheer, it is I, do not be afraid. Those are very similar commands by Jesus. He told the ruler of the synagogue do not be afraid, only believe. He told his disciples while they— when he was walking on the water, do not be afraid, be of good cheer, do not be afraid. And this, I believe, is, is maybe a key to help you exercise your faith, is we have got to destroy the fear. Fear and faith can't operate at the same time. Satan uses fear, he uses our five senses. That's why if we're plugged into what the world's doing and we're looking at with our eyes and we're looking, we're sensing everything. You know, these disciples were fishermen. They knew the sea. They've been fighting this sea for hours. What probably should have taken a couple of hours trip had taken all night and they were like halfway there. So I mean, they're fighting, they're struggling. So they're in the middle of using their senses and using their bodies to fight this wind. And these waves, and here comes Jesus walking on the problem. The same problem that they had, he's walking on it. And it says, notice in the verse before that, that he would have passed by. Now, if they would not had called out to him, or if they, you know, I really don't know what that verse exactly means. Was the Lord just gonna walk by them even if they'd acknowledged him and said, hey Jesus, what you doing out there walking on the water? I believe his disciples were in total fear at the time and they were panicking. He'd have kept walking if they wouldn't have taken that under control. They had to destroy that fear. They had to acknowledge him and not use fear. You've gotta use faith to get Jesus to enter your boat. I believe you gotta use faith to get Jesus to enter into your problem. Now, these guys had a huge problem, and because Jesus was God, he knew what the problem was. He knew that they were fearful, and he'd have passed by if they'd have just stayed fearful. No, get away from me, you're a demon, whatever. You know, whatever they would have screamed. If they would have screamed that, I believe he'd have kept walking. But I believe they must have had a positive response. And I think if you go to Matthew, you're going to see my boy Peter was the one that had the positive response. Now Jesus would have walked by because in, in Matthew it says, but immediately Jesus spoke to them saying, be of good cheer, it is I, do not be afraid. And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it is you, Command me to come to you on the water. So he said, come. And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. Now Jesus would have passed right by had they not had a positive response. And that's what I— and I don't want to talk about Peter walking on water because I said I wanted to walk on water, and maybe that's why I like Peter. I don't know. He was not saved yet, and Peter walked on water, and so that just fires me up to think that I can do it. But, you know, if you're reading this, you're going to have to hear Jesus say, "Come." And so I'm waiting. But I want to concentrate on the positive response. Jesus required them to not be afraid. And you see that Jesus walked on water, Peter got out and walked on water, and then you see in verse 32, "And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased." And this exact same story is found in John 6, and in 6:20 But he said to them, it is I, do not be afraid. Then they willingly received him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land where they were going. Now you can read this in John, and you can read it in Mark, and you can read it in Matthew. It's the same account, but each one has different pieces or different parts of the same story told a different way. But each time it says, do not be afraid, and that's really what I want to concentrate on is God required a positive response. And that's what, in order for faith to happen, or faith to work, or Jesus to come into your problem, we gotta get fear out. And that's the point of this episode, is we just need to cast fear as far as we can get it out of our world, and we need to release faith. And so let's pray. God, I thank you so much for your word. I bind up fear in the name of Jesus. If there's fear in anybody's life, anybody that's listening to this podcast, I bind up fear and release faith into the situation that they're in. God, I thank you for your word. I thank you, Jesus, for the example that you've given us. Holy Spirit, thank you for never leaving us nor forsaking us. Lord, we love you, we thank you, and we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you on the next episode.
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