SEVEN Series: Week 9 - Walking on Water

Church, you may have a seat.

Worship team, thank you so much.

As you guys are being sat, I want to encourage you to get your Bibles out and open them now to the New Testament book of John, the Gospel of John.

Today we're gonna be in chapter six where we were left off last week.

If you don't have a Bible, I want to encourage you.

Would you please raise your hand and allow our ushers who are gonna be coming from all sides of our worship center to bring you a Bible?

The Bible that they give you is a gift.

It's your Bible.

We encourage you to take it with you when you leave today and bring it back with you when you come back next week.

I want to take the opportunity to welcome all of our campuses, welcome our online community, and I want to give a special welcome to all of you who are brand new here today.

If I haven't met you before or if I haven't had the privilege of talking with you, my name is Andrew, and I am the lead pastor here.

We are currently in the middle of a series called Seven, where throughout the summer we have been looking at, specific to the Gospel of John, seven messages and seven miracles that help us understand who Jesus is.

We've framed it around the idea that when we understand who Jesus is, it informs whose we are and influences everything that we do.

That we understand who Jesus is, it informs whose we are, and it influences everything that we do.

We have had some incredible moments together as we've been studying these seven messages and these seven miracles.

I want to take this opportunity as your pastor to thank our amazing teaching team who have so faithfully and powerfully rightly divided God's word over the last three weeks, allowing me some time to step back from my preaching responsibilities.

I know many of you understand that as pastors, a part of what we get to do when we're shepherding and leading the church is to present messages, to preach the messages.

There's a lot of work that goes into writing and developing sermons.

I've been doing ministry vocationally now for 29 years.

I was just asked even this week by some other pastors how much time I spend writing my messages.

The old statistic was for every one minute presented is one hour of preparation.

The average sermon length, depending on who's speaking, usually me, it's about 52 minutes.

I try for 40, we get to 52, we're doing good.

I spend somewhere between 15 and 25 hours a week developing sermons as I've learned different skills and different techniques to develop the messages over that period of time.

But that also comes at a cost in that it takes away from other things that I'm responsible for.

And so I look for opportunities every year to take some time to step back from my regular rhythm of preaching and focus on other things.

And in particular, over the last three weeks, I've had the privilege of focusing on six major projects, some of which you'll hear about in the coming months, which we're incredibly excited about.

What I love maybe as much as anything is the unbelievable talent that we have as a teaching team here.

We have over the last three weeks heard from Pastor Jacob, from Pastor Chris, and last week from Pastor Caden.

And it is so encouraging to step out of the pulpit to focus on some other things and to know that we are in phenomenal hands with men of God who are gonna rightly divide his word with authenticity and accuracy and in ways that we can understand and apply to our lives.

Would you agree?

Amen.

Yes, we are so blessed by our teaching team.

We're gonna be in John chapter 6.

John 6 · chapter mention

We're gonna pick up the last two verses that Caden left us with in verse 14 and 15, and then we're gonna read this miracle that will take us through verse 21.

In John chapter 6, beginning in verse 14.

John 6 · chapter mention

When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, This is indeed the prophet who is coming to the world.

Perceiving then that they were about to come and taken by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum.

It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them.

The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing.

When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were frightened.

But he said to them, It is I.

Do not be afraid.

Then they were glad to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going.

Father, I thank you for the privilege that we have this morning to sit under your word.

Holy Spirit, we invite you to come and to inspire us, to give us a fresh and a new revelation.

We commit our time to you.

I give you my dreams, my desires, my expectations.

And Father, we lay them all at your feet.

I pray that not only will this moment of worship, as your word goes out, but that our lives would be like an alabaster jar broken and before you, laid before you as an act of worship.

Father, I don't know what each person has come into this place with this morning, what storms of life they might be facing, what doubts, what questions, what concerns, what celebrations, what victories.

But you do, Lord.

You know all of it.

Holy Spirit, I invite you to pierce our hearts today.

I invite you to come and move and have your being.

And may the words of my mouth and meditation of our hearts be received as a gift, holy and pleasing to you alone, the author and professor of our faith.

And the whole church said there was an African king who had as his closest servant, his childhood friend.

They had grown up together for years.

They had played together, they had learned together, they had stayed over with one another, they had run the villages together, and as this prince became king, he began to appoint leaders around him for various tasks, roles, and responsibilities.

Thinking of his friend and the loyalty that his friend had exhibited, thinking of his friend and the nature that his friend possessed, he couldn't think of anyone better to be by his side every day, all day.

And so he appointed him to be the king's closest servant.

One of the king's hobbies was hunting.

One of the responsibilities of the king's servant was to prepare everything for the hunt, including making sure that his rifle was ready, putting the amount of powder that was proper for what they were hunting in, and loading the gun, and making sure that everything was in perfect working order.

And then together the two of them would go off and they would scout the lands and spot where they needed to be and post up and the king would go for this hunt.

One day, excited, ready for the hunt, the king and his friend, his closest servant, go out for a hunt.

They see their wild game in front of them.

The servant spots for him.

The king takes, draws at the ready, pulls the hammer back, and as he pulls the trigger, the gun malfunctioned.

The powder broke at the barrel and it blew the king's thumb off.

Outraged, he had his best friend, his childhood friend, and his closest servant arrested, beaten.

He belittled this man and said, How could you?

thrown in jail.

The king's servant sat there, broken and battered.

And when asked by the king, how do you feel now?

He looked up at the king and he said, This is good.

A year went by.

The king healed.

The king appointed a new servant.

The king had appointed a new servant that would hunt with him.

One day that servant fell ill and the king was anxious to go hunting, and so he set everything up himself and he went off on his own.

As he was out there, he was surrounded by a tribe of cannibals.

They captured him, they strung him up, they took him in front of the whole village, they stripped him and they were preparing to feast on him.

When the chief of the tribe noticed that the king was missing a thumb.

Superstitious, he would not have anything to do with an individual who was missing any limbs.

And so they released the king.

The king ran back to the dungeon and he found his friend and he told his friend who he hadn't spoken to in a year, everything that had happened.

And the king's friend, the king's once closest servant, looked at the king and he said, This is good.

And as they continued to talk over and over and over again, the king's friend and the king's once servant said, This is good.

And the king finally, exasperated and confused and frustrated, cried out to his friend from the jail, How can this be good?

And the king's servant said, Because had I been free and had gone hunting with you, and we had been captured, they would have eaten me.

This is good.

It's a story of the silver lining.

That's not my story.

You can actually look it up.

It's a fictitious tale called The African King that is intended to set the stage for an objective moral lesson about how we see the world, about how we see our circumstances, and about how we approach these obstacles in our lives.

Today, as we study John chapter 6 and verses 14 through 21, we're gonna look at obstacles, we're gonna look at storms, and we're gonna evaluate, ask, and ultimately answer how we can approach these opportunities in our lives.

John 6 · chapter mention

As we jump in, we're gonna read Mark chapter 6.

Mark 6 · chapter mention

I want to let you know up front that of the four Gospels, three of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and John, record this instance.

Matthew chapter 14, Mark chapter 6, and here John chapter 6, each tell of these same events.

Matthew 14 · chapter mention Mark 6 · chapter mention John 6 · chapter mention

From being at the temple at the Passover to Jesus traveling up along the Decapolis and into a space where miraculously what we learned last week, the feeding of 5,000, which was actually more than 5,000, scholars and historians and theologians believe it could have been as many as 20,000.

Only the men were counted, were fed with two fish and five barley loaves.

And we looked last week as Pastor Caden taught us about how Jesus sees us and the relationship that we share with Jesus.

And each one of these three of the four Gospels share different understandings of what happened in the story.

And they're all similar, they're all symbiotic, they're all one and the same, they're just from different vantage points.

Each individual chose to share a different part, which creates a collective whole.

I share this with you because we're only going to study John's account of this miracle, Jesus walking on water.

I may reference at different points Matthew 14 and Mark 6, but I want to encourage you to go later this week on your own and meet read Matthew 14, 22 through 33, and Mark chapter 6, 45 through 52, so you can see how these different parts and pieces fit together to create this incredible miracle of God.

Mark 6 · chapter mention

Today we're going to go back verse by verse.

I'm going to stop along the way and we're going to expound a little bit on what we're reading.

And at the end, I hope to share four things with us that will challenge us, that will inspire us, that will move us, and that the Holy Spirit will transform us.

Beginning again in verse 14.

When the people, those gathered in the decapolis who had come from all over the place, saw the sign that Jesus, after challenging his disciples about where they would get enough food to feed all of these hungry people, and he turned two fish and five loaves of bread into not only enough to feed the masses, but to have baskets of food left over.

When these people saw what Jesus had done, they said, This is indeed the prophet.

If you're able to circle or highlight that, the prophet is capitalized P, which means it's a proper pronoun, and it's going to speak to the person of Jesus.

It's a proper pronoun addressing Jesus' role.

This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.

These people have grown up hearing stories, oral traditions, and even rules and regulations, laws, that have set the stage, including prophetic words for the Messiah, the promised or anointed one that would come.

And they are actively awaiting the coming of their king.

They're looking forward to the Messiah.

They understand that there are going to be signs, that there are going to be wonders and things that they're now seeing.

We're going to see specifically today by the time we're done.

Four Old Testament prophecies come to fruition in John chapter 6 alone.

John 6 · chapter mention

Four.

From thousands of years before Jesus steps on to the scene, things that were prophesied or foretold about, truths that were presented thousands of years before that Jesus fulfills.

This is the first of the four.

The people see the sign.

And what is the sign?

Well, in Deuteronomy 18, I want to encourage you, if you're able to turn there in your Bible, Mark John chapter 6.

John 6 · chapter mention

I want to read this because it's really important that you see that you're able to draw a parallel between the Old and the New Testament, the prophetic truth, and the fulfillment of the prophecy.

Here, if you look in chapter 18 of Deuteronomy, beginning in verse 15, it's going to come up on the screen for your convenience.

The Lord, this is God, speaking to Moses for three different reasons.

Primarily to establish the laws of the Levitical priests, their roles and their relationships, as well as to create parameters and boundaries by which the nation of Israel would not exercise outside of the framework that God was establishing, and then ultimately a prophetic word.

Here's the prophetic word in verse 15.

The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me, Moses, from among you, from your brothers.

It is him you shall listen.

Just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God or see the great fire any more lest I die.

And the Lord said to me, They are right in what they have spoken.

I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I commanded him.

And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.

But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, the same prophet shall die.

And if you say in your heart, how may we know the word that the Lord has spoken?

When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken.

The prophet has spoken it presumptuously.

You need not be afraid of him.

Two things that I want us to understand.

Number one, this speaks to the significance of how Scripture is our ultimate plumb line, of how Scripture is our ultimate true North.

This does not change.

These words of God, all 66 books, from the first book in the Bible, Genesis, to the last book in the Bible, Revelation, the 39 books in the Old Testament, the 27 books in the New Testament, the word of God is inerrant.

It's free from flaw.

It is perfect, it is complete, it is holy, it is inspired, it is active, it is alive, and it is transformative.

We can trust the reliability of the scriptures.

What we read as we read in Deuteronomy 18 is that when it comes to all things in life, and even what we hear from prophets, what we hear from pastors, what we hear from teleevangelists, what we hear from preachers, what we hear from the people who are traveling itinerant speakers, whatever they say, and church, hear me when I tell you this.

I am not the exception to this rule.

I believe it was Ronald Reagan who once said, trust, but verify.

I hope that we've established a relationship over 18 months that I've been able to pastor at this church, that you should be able to trust me.

Trust what I say and the validity of what's coming from my mouth, but I am telling you, I am instructing you, don't ever take me at my word.

If what I say doesn't align entirely, completely with the word of God, then you always go with the word of God.

100%.

So the second thing that we see here is this prophetic truth.

Moses is letting the people know, be on the lookout, the Messiah, the anointed one, the promised one, is gonna come to you.

Like me, Moses, who's leading the people, he's gonna lead you.

Like me, Moses, who provided miraculously food for you when you were hungry, he too is gonna provide food for you.

Does that sound familiar?

Miraculous feeding.

Like me, he's gonna speak for God.

And now the people who have been looking for and anticipating and waiting for the Messiah, this promised one, they see Jesus do this miracle and they recognize Jesus.

They're alert, they're aware, and when Jesus moves, they recognize it and they respond.

Church, do you know the Word of God so intrinsically, so inside and out, that when God moves, you recognize him for who he is and what he's doing, and you're able to respond?

Do you have that level of understanding, that level of comprehension, that level of excitement where you've studied the word of God and you're in the word of God and you're allowing the word of God to take hold of you inside of you, that when God moves, you identify it and recognize it for who he is and what he's doing, so that when you recognize it, you too can respond.

That is how critical the word of God is.

That's why one of our core values at Crossroads is biblical literacy.

That's why every week, unapologetically, we are begging you to bring your Bible.

And if you don't have a Bible, to take a Bible.

We want you to have the Word of God with you.

We want you to study it, we want you to write in it, we want you to read it, we want you to know it.

Because it's perfect, complete, and transformative.

And when you allow the word of God to take hold of you, it changes everything.

When the people saw Jesus show up on the scene, they recognized him and they were able to respond.

But I want to talk about their response.

We're gonna see a problem with their response.

In verse 15, we see that as they respond, how they respond matters.

In verse 15, perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

Jesus recognized that these people's excitement was growing.

They had perceived and had recognized this prophetic word now fulfilled.

And they wanted to make Jesus their king.

Now, that word in the original language represents someone of greater authority or higher power.

It doesn't say that they wanted to serve Jesus as savior, but they wanted to elevate Jesus as their king.

Their motives and motivation were built around what Jesus had done for them, not who Jesus was to them.

They were excited because Jesus had miraculously fed 20,000 people.

And it wasn't a TV dinner from Kroger.

It was like Fogo de Chow, all you can eat Brazilian buffet.

If you know what I mean, you know what I mean.

You know what I mean?

If you don't know what I mean, you take your happy backside out to Columbus and you go to Fogo de Chow.

Save up for it.

Don't eat for a day before and three days after, but it'll change your life.

They were excited about what Jesus could do for them.

And so they wanted Jesus to restore Israel unto them.

They wanted Jesus to heal them.

They wanted Jesus to be good to them and to bless them.

They wanted all the things that Jesus did for them, but their motives were completely twisted.

It wasn't about him as savior, only as supplier.

And we need to be careful to check our motives and our hearts as we come in.

Do we want to encounter Jesus as our Savior, or do we come to church hoping for?

A supplier.

And we're going to get something in exchange.

Jesus, we're going to negotiate this.

I gave you an hour of my time on Sunday.

Let's be honest, Pastor Andrew hadn't preached in three weeks.

It was an hour and a half.

I threw a couple of pennies in the coffer.

I volunteered a little bit.

I prayed some prayers.

I even did a little bit of reading.

What have you done for me lately?

What are you going to do for me?

Do we approach Jesus as our supplier or do we come to him and invite him to be our Savior, our sanctifier, and our coming king?

Jesus recognizes that the motivations and the motives of the people are way off.

And instead of allowing them to capture him and make them elevate him to the point of king, his motives are spot on.

He knows the mission.

Jesus is on mission and he knows by whom has sent him and what he's here to do.

So he gets away and he goes off to a mountain by himself to pray.

And at the same time, he sends his disciples off.

The Lord your God will raise raise up a prophet like me.

And here we're seeing it.

And the people want to take Jesus by authority and they want to make him king.

And Jesus, checking their motives, breaks away and he centers his heart on his purpose, his soul.

S-O-U-L.

Purpose.

Verse 16.

When evening came, based on the language and the timing, it's likely that we're somewhere around 9 p.m.

When evening came, after Jesus had sent his disciples down, his disciples went down to the sea, the Sea of Galilee.

I'll talk about that in a minute.

They got into a boat, a boat that they were well familiar with, because many of the disciples were fishermen.

They were multiple generation fishermen.

They knew the Sea of Galilee.

They knew this fishing vessel.

They knew the weather patterns.

They knew all of the things that they were there and going to encounter.

They got into this boat and they started across the sea to Capernaum.

They have been in Beth Seda and they are on their way to Capernaum.

I'll talk more about this briefly, but the width of the Sea of Galilee is just a little more than eight miles from where Beth Seda is on the northeastern side to where Capernaum is on the northwestern side is roughly five or maybe six miles as the crow flies.

They got into the boat, knowing that it was now dark, to make a journey that five to six miles would be somewhere around one and a half to maybe two hours under perfect conditions.

Being nine o'clock, this would have set them up to be back to the shoreline around 10:30 or 11 and give them plenty of time to dock the boat and get back to their homes.

They got into the boat, they started across the Sea of Capernaum.

It was now dark.

In other gospel accounts, Matthew and in Mark, the the the idea there is mentioned that it's the fourth watch.

The fourth watch is actually 3 a.m.

I want you to hold on to that because they started at roughly 9 p.m.

And it is now 3 a.m.

It would take somewhere between one and a half to two hours to travel that distance, and yet here we are, six hours into this journey, and we see that it was dark and Jesus had not yet come to them.

The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing.

I want to show you a picture of the Sea of Galilee, and I want to explain some things to you.

This is an aerial view from NASA, from our orbit satellite of the Sea of Galilee.

The Sea of Galilee, in the country of Israel, is the farthest northern part of Israel, near the Golan Heights.

From north to south, or top to bottom, it is approximately 13 miles long.

From west to east, it is approximately 8 miles wide.

It feeds directly into the Jordan River, which below the Jordan River is the Dead Sea.

The Dead Sea to the Sea of Galilee is approximately 65 miles.

From the Sea of Galilee to the Mediterranean Sea is roughly 27 miles.

The Mediterranean Sea is 27 miles to the east of the Sea, or excuse me, to the west of the Sea of Galilee.

The Sea of Galilee, now this picture shows some of the topography, and what you'll capture, what you should understand and see, is that it is surrounded by mountain regions all the way around.

It is completely enclosed, with the exception of two small valleys at the top and the bottom.

What happens then is you get these shifting weather patterns that come off of the Mediterranean Sea, or that'll come from the heat that is to the east, the desert parts, that will come over the hills and roll into the Sea of Galilee.

And it creates a gale.

A gale is a storm that meteorologists have determined carries with it at minimum 39 mile an hour winds up to 54, 55, 56 mile per hour winds.

Hail can come down, it can come sideways, it can almost feel like it's coming up at you.

The wind in something like this is so catastrophic that they lose ship after ship after ship.

Even today, I've been on the Sea of Galilee, and it's incredible to be out.

I've been out there when it's raining.

I was out there in the Sea of Galilee, and it was sun and beautiful, and just off to the distance was the mountain of Beatitudes where Jesus gave his very first sermon on the mountain.

And just like that, the rain started coming.

The weather patterns shift when the hot and the cold weather converge, and as they're coming over the sides of the mountain, that becomes a death trap.

Here's what we need to understand then is that the disciples are caught in the middle of an outrageous storm.

For six hours, they've been trying to make their way just five miles.

What would normally take one and a half, maybe two hours at best, they can't get anywhere.

They're stuck in the middle of this storm.

It's coming down from all sides.

And I want us to understand that these aren't just any average men out for a jaunt or a little ski trip.

These are expert fishermen.

These are individuals who understand weather conditions, weather patterns, and how to navigate and how to use the the oars and the sails and how to make the most of the vessel that they're in.

It wouldn't have been a huge vessel, maybe 26 feet in length and eight feet wide.

And as this weather turns on them, they're stuck in the storm.

I want us to see that it doesn't matter what kind of experts they are.

Sometimes storms in life are bigger than our abilities.

And what do we do?

What do we do when we feel like the storm is coming from every side?

Not just down on us, but it's flying in our face.

It's coming up at us, it's coming from every area.

What do we do with that?

There are storms that we're gonna face in life that it doesn't matter how prepared we are for, we're not prepared enough for.

What do we do with this?

They're down there, they're giving everything they've got, and yet they're not making any headwind.

Verse 19 tells us that when they had rode, when they had rode and rode and rode about three or four miles, a five, maybe six-mile journey, they're they're not getting very far.

They saw Jesus.

In Matthew and Mark's account, they recall that initially they believed that it was a ghost.

They saw Jesus walking on the water.

Here's the truth: that there's so much superstition around water, and specifically in the Sea of Galilee, because of all the capsized ships and the individuals who had been lost at sea, that they believed that when the night fell and that the storms came, that the ghosts of the individuals who had died before them would hover over the waters.

The disciples were scared because of the storm.

They were scared because it was bigger than what they were capable of managing.

They were also scared, according to Matthew and Mark's account as well, because as they see Jesus walking, they don't immediately identify what they believe to be a ghost as Jesus.

They think initially the worst case scenario, that this is a ghost and they're afraid.

The Bible says that they were frightened.

Can you think of just very pragmatically with me what you believe that they might be frightened by?

Can we all agree that if you saw something walking on water, that would be a little scary?

Have you ever been caught in a storm that you didn't know if you were gonna get out of?

That can be a little bit scary.

It was what 12:41 this morning when lightning and thunder came crashing down.

I I felt like it hit my front yard, shot up, I looked at my watch and I thought, okay, Lord, you want me to get up now?

Because I'm tired.

Storms can be scary.

Storms can be overwhelming, and they can impact us in ways that we wouldn't even imagine.

Just recently, my wife and I, while we were uh while I was working on some of these projects, I was able to get away with my family a little bit too, and one of the places that we we got to go visit was one of the cities I had never been to, was Boston, Massachusetts.

It was on the day that the wildfires from Canada were at their worst.

Before they hit us, like the next day, we got it really bad in Ohio.

We were, my family and I, we were walking around downtown Boston, and it felt like we were hotboxing in the entire city.

Seven of you know what I just said.

Two things, shame on you, and explain it to somebody later.

It just you every breath you took, it felt like, I mean, here I am at the garden, right?

The house that Larry built.

Which, by the way, can we just stop for a minute and talk about LeBron going to Philly?

What?

No, I don't have time for that.

That's that's ridiculous.

Anyway, I'm outside in Boston, and here's the house that Larry built, and I'm walking around and seeing all the haba and all the things, and you can't see anything.

Like you couldn't breathe, you couldn't see anything because the wildfire is out of control.

And it doesn't matter the resources that they had, they couldn't get it under control, and the implications have been felt everywhere in the U.S., like straight below.

That's that's what the disciples were dealing with.

It didn't matter how many resources they had, this was out of control, and they were afraid of the storm, they were afraid of their lives being lost, they were afraid of the implications of what that would have meant for their families.

These men would have been the sole providers for their families in many instances.

They were afraid.

There was a lot to be afraid of, and I want us to see two things.

One, that it's okay to be afraid in the middle of uncertainty and storm.

But I want to talk about what that looks like in verse 20.

When when he Jesus saw this and he recognized their fear, he said to them, It is I.

Ego emi, do not be afraid.

It is I.

Do not be afraid.

Then the disciples were glad to take him into the boat.

Skeptical at first, scared at first, but then Jesus speaks directly to them in the middle of the storm.

And I want you to see this.

I want you to catch this.

Jesus didn't stop the storm before he spoke to their spirit.

Jesus didn't stop the storm before he spoke to their spirit.

He spoke to them, they invited him in, and then there came the calm.

After they invited Jesus' presence and his person into the boat, then came the peace.

He said, Don't be afraid, it's me.

Then they were glad to take him into the boat, not out of obligation, but with joy, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going.

There was peace over the waters, and miraculously they arrived.

I want us to see, I mentioned at the onset of our time together, that there were four Old Testament parallels to New Testament fulfillment of prophecies.

And I want to show you an image that will help us understand these four.

The first in the upper left, we've already talked about.

This is from Deuteronomy 18, where Moses is telling the people that there will be a prophet like me who will come, and you see the key verse there, the Lord will raise up a prophet like me from among you.

We see that in John chapter 6, verse 14, and verse 15.

John 6:14

But the three others that we see, the Lord over the waters.

In the upper right-hand corner, I want you to see this that he is the Lord over the waters.

You'll see three parallel passages there in Psalm 77, in Job 9, and Isaiah 43.

In each one of these instances, write them down, take a screenshot of this, whatever you need to do.

I want you to go research and study these on your own.

Every time we see God mentioned as being in complete control over the waters, it is the attribute, the name or the characteristic of God that is Yahweh.

It is the greatest attribute and characteristic or name, the name that is above every other name that we use.

We use other things to describe characteristics of God: Adonai, Elohim, Jehovah Jirah, Jehovah Rapha.

These are characteristics or quality traits.

But when thinking about the creator God of the universe, the author and perfecter of our faith, we use the word Yahweh.

And for devout Jews, they don't even utter that.

They will whisper it because the name is too holy, it is too set apart, it is too special, it is too revered.

I want you to see here that every time it's mentioned in the Old Testament, it is mentioned that it is Yahweh, creator God, who is over the waters.

And now here we see that Jesus Christ is what?

Over the waters, which establishes what?

A principal priority that He is God.

The third in the lower left, divine theophany.

There are examples, Mark 6, we're talking about today, Exodus 33 in 1 Kings 19.

In Exodus 33, you see Moses up on Mount Sinai.

This is where Moses is instructed by God to turn away because God is going to pass by and let his presence be seen.

Moses sees God.

This divine theophany, it's the revelation, it's where God presents himself to humanity.

As Moses comes down off the mountain, his encounter with God is such that he now is radiant with light to the point where people ask him to cover himself because they can't see how bright he is.

The other one in 1 Kings is Elijah, where he is also instructed to be ready as God will pass by.

In Mark's account, Mark 6, I believe, verse 48, it says that Jesus wasn't intending to stop at the boat, but that he was intending to pass by.

Why this detail is important is because this also sets the stage that this is God who revealed himself to Moses.

This was God who revealed himself to Elijah, and in the same way, this is God who intended to pass by to reveal himself to the disciples.

A prophetic example come to fruition in the word and the work of Jesus.

And then finally, the fourth, ego a me.

I am.

Jesus says, you don't need to worry, you don't need to be afraid because I am.

If you look at the parallel passages there, write them down, study them on your own.

But Exodus 3.14 is the most primary principle that we recognize.

That's Moses, as he is a fugitive, and he's wanted for murder, and he is married Jethro's daughter, and he is now a nomad.

He is living in the deserts.

He goes from the palace and to uh basically a prison of the desert, and he's wandering around tending to his father-in-law's flock.

He he he he goes up into the side of a mountain, and there he sees this this bush, this burning bush that is on fire but not devoured.

And as Moses walks in, the Lord God Yahweh calls and Moses.

Moses, take off your sandals, for the place you are standing is holy ground.

And Moses said, Who are you, Lord?

And God says, I am who I am.

Ego amen.

I want you to see now.

This is incredible.

Was it Pastor Chris just a couple of weeks ago?

Or no, I think it was Jacob that talked about one prophecy, the likelihood of one prophecy being fulfilled, by taking all the quarters and stacking them eight feet high through the entire state of Texas and putting an X on one quarter, throwing it in the middle of somewhere, getting in a helicopter, flying over, and identifying that one quarter.

And yet, in this one example, this one passage, in these few verses, John 6, 14 through 21, we see four prophecies fulfilled.

We see the parallel from the Old and the New Testament.

Jesus establishes himself, his sovereignty and his divinity.

And when Jesus establishes his sovereignty and divinity, it transforms eternity for us.

When we invite him in.

There are four things that I want to give us to think about as we conclude our time together today.

These four, I'm gonna read them and I'm gonna go back over them.

Misguided motives, meaningful storms manifest savior and move to surrender.

In misguided motives, our motives dictate our desires for Jesus.

Church, I want us to see this and understand this that our motives dictate our desire for Jesus.

Are we seeking Jesus for what he can do for us or for who he is to us?

Are we coming to Jesus hoping that he'll be our supplier?

Or is it enough that he is our Savior, our sanctifier, and our coming king?

Oh, I want you to be really clear and hear me say this.

There's nothing wrong with coming to Jesus as your supplier.

The Bible encourages, in fact, the Bible instructs us to come.

It is he who will supply all of our needs according to his riches and glory.

It's he who says, look, if if any of you ask for bread, which one of them is going to give them a snake?

How much good then, if you as an earthly father do good, how much more good will your heavenly father do?

We see over and over again how God highlights the fact that he takes care of the birds of the air and the beasts of the field and the lilies of the valley, and that he knows every hair on our heads and is he who wants to do good things.

We see that from the Old Testament as well, not the least of which is one of the most oft-quoted verses.

I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord.

Plans to prosper you, plans not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.

And though that wasn't written for us, it's outside of time for us in a different culture and context.

The promise remains the same for us.

It wasn't to us, but it is for us.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with understanding that he is our supplier, but as a byproduct of being our savior.

We miss the relationship if we come to him just as a supplier.

Because what he supplies will eventually dissipate and be gone.

But as our savior, that's eternal.

Our motives matter, our motivations matter.

Come to him as your savior, allow him to lead you as your supplier.

The second is meaningful storms.

Our outlook informs our opportunities.

Our outlook informs our opportunities.

I cannot tell you that this, I can't tell you enough that this is the point that I have been hung up on most this entire week.

Storms are far more than just obstacles in our way.

You know, for me, if I'm being honest with you, when I face storms in my life, somebody even asked me this morning how my shingles is doing, now my shingles recovery.

Thursday was 13 weeks, and as I stand here, I'm a three out of 10.

Praise God.

The last time I preached, I was like a seven or an eight.

But it's it's this is unlike anything I've ever experienced in my life.

This is stupid.

I'm over this.

And I've often thought, Lord, why?

What did I do wrong?

How many times we face something difficult that we think we're being punished?

But what if it isn't about punishment at all?

What if it was about a preparation that God is preparing you to show up in your life in a way that you wouldn't be ready for unless you went through the storm?

It's not an obstacle, it's an opportunity.

It sharpens us.

These opportunities give us a deeper faith and a desire to connect with Christ.

I don't know what the storm is that you're facing right now.

And it may be that it feels like it's coming over the top, in your face, up from the water.

It may feel like it's coming from all sides, relationally, financially, physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally.

It may feel like it's coming from every angle, but here is the opportunity that we have.

We do not have to sit in a space of discouragement, holding on to the fact that this is an obstacle.

We can take heart knowing that this is an opportunity.

Can I be honest?

And I don't know, I'm not gonna get into the weeds.

I've had too many opportunities to retell them all, but can I just tell you that very, very candidly, I often don't see Jesus clearly when everything's going really well.

I can actually find myself stagnant in my faith when everything's firing in all cylinders and I've got rhythms that are healthy and good.

And but give me an obstacle that I can't do anything about.

And all of a sudden, my reliance changes.

My reliance quotient goes through the roof.

My cries for help go through the roof.

My willingness to look for the Lord goes through the roof.

Now, it doesn't have to be that way.

It must be that in the goods and the difficults that we find ourselves pursuing and actively looking for Jesus, but I'm just being honest that in my flesh, I have found that I am more likely to connect at a deeper level with Jesus when I am struggling and in the middle of a storm than when things are going really well for me.

When things are going really well for me, I'm like, Jesus, you just sit over there and you just buckle up.

We're gonna have some fun.

But the moment that I run out of gas, or the moment that my brake line snaps, or the moment that power steering goes out, or the moment that you know I'm driving up and down Park Avenue on Friday night, I get scared.

And then it's all of a sudden carry underwood, your best friend, Jesus take the wheel.

More of you got that than the hotboxing.

Good.

That's good.

Don't despise the storm.

Surrender to your Savior.

Don't despise the storm.

Surrender to your Savior.

The third thing that I want us to think about is manifested Savior.

Do you know that our circumstances often reveal our Savior?

Oftentimes the fiercest storms reveal Jesus in ways that we could never otherwise imagine.

The disciples had known Jesus, they had walked with Jesus, they had talked with Jesus, they had seen Jesus' miracles, but this is the first time that they themselves have been caught in a storm like this.

And they were so overcome with fear that they didn't even recognize Jesus.

These are people that Jesus called and knew by name.

Personal invitation to be his disciples.

And yet in the middle of the harshest storms, they had not recognized Jesus.

And it wasn't until they heard Jesus' voice that they saw and recognized Jesus for who he was.

And they invited him into their circumstance.

Our circumstances reveal our Savior.

They were moved to surrender.

That's the fourth part.

They were moved to surrender.

Our challenges become our call.

Our challenges become our call.

When we recognize Jesus for who he is and yield in surrender, we experience a peace that is impossible apart from him.

I have two questions for you to think about this morning.

The first is, where are you at on the seas of life?

Are you good?

Weather patterns good.

Seas calm.

Or are you in the middle of a storm?

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

It's not to scare you, it's just to alert you.

That if you're not in the middle of a storm, this has been my experience, that if you're not in the middle of a storm, that means either you've just come out of a storm or that you better be getting ready because a storm is coming.

It's a cycle of life.

Where are you in the storm?

And the second question is where do you need to surrender to Jesus?

Where do you need to invite him into your story?

Where do you need to invite him into your circumstance?

Where do you need to invite him into your life?

Where do you need to invite him to come and move and have his being in and amongst you?

You know, so many of us have this unfortunate misrepresentation that we have to get our lives right before we can invite Jesus in, or we have to get our lives squared away before Jesus would want anything to do with us, or we've got to get our lives squared away before God can use us.

But if you look at the disciples, they invited Jesus in during the middle of the storm, not after.

They invited Jesus in in the middle of the storm.

And it was then that they experienced the transformative power of King Jesus, who silenced the storm, calmed the seas, and miraculously took them to where they needed to be.

What storm are you facing?

And where do you need to surrender to King Jesus today?

Oh church, as your pastor, as your friend, I beg you, there's no greater decision than you'll ever make than right now than to surrender to King Jesus.

Jesus says, Come to me, all of you who are tired and broken, and I'll give you rest.