The Miracles of Jesus: Afraid, Pursued, and Cared For

So we are halfway through our study of the major miracles of Jesus in the book of John.

So we have talked about our issues with miracles, which we have, and I have, and you have.

And then we've been learning from each miracle as we've been reading about it.

So we're in John chapter 6, and uh Jesus crosses the Sea of Galilee.

John 6 · chapter mention

Remember that really big lake?

Here's a picture of it, really big lake in northeast Israel, surrounded by hills and towns.

And last week we learned about the feeding of the 5,000.

But last week, in the middle of chapter 6, we did skip over one story that John places right in the middle of the feeding of the 5,000.

He places this story, this other story.

It's wedged in there.

And so I'll reread what Sam read so we can get it into ourselves, and then we'll break it down and talk about it.

John 6, 16 through 21.

When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into the 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.

So, like all the miracles that are documented for us, this validates Jesus as the Christ, creator, authority over creation.

And then also the story itself teaches us something about humanity, teaches us something about ourselves and our issues, your issues and my issues, and about God.

In many ways, I do feel like this sermon is almost on repeat from last week, so forgive me for that.

But it's also John's point.

It's actually the reason why John wedges a story in the middle of another story.

He's really hammering home these points.

And point number one is this we are all afraid and overwhelmed.

Amen?

Maybe?

Maybe you confess it now, confess it later, okay.

You will, you will confess it eventually, right?

Like because we all are.

I'm afraid and overwhelmed.

You are, your cranky cousin is.

I mean, every everybody is.

We've become very familiar with Taylor Swift's new album around our house the last couple weeks, and like every other good preacher in America quoting the song Anti-Hero this morning, I will join them because it's just perfect.

I should not be left to my own devices.

They come with prices and vices.

I end up in crisis.

Tale as old as time.

It's me.

Hi.

I'm the problem.

It's me.

At tea time, everybody agrees.

I'll stare directly at the sun, but never in the mirror.

It must be exhausting, always rooting for the anti-hero.

And that's not to shame us.

Like, we don't have to use that to shame us.

Like, God loves you so much, why don't you have your act together?

We don't have to shame ourselves over that.

It's actually a kind welcome to us to come into a greater awareness of what's actually true, which is we're more broken than we originally thought.

We're messier than we thought.

It's a huge relief to be honest about this, to come into the proper diagnosis of what's wrong with us on the inside of us, that we are actually sinners in need of God's grace.

Incredibly relieving to just embrace it.

This past Monday, our family celebrated Halloween.

Maybe you did, maybe you didn't, don't know.

We did with our neighbors with a big street party.

Here's some two of our kids with our neighbors out at the street party, and then we went from there, and we walked down church street just over there a few blocks, and we went house to house.

And my kids are getting older, which means I'm becoming the old parent, which means I don't have to pay attention.

It's wonderful.

It's incredible.

I'm just hanging out, just walking along, hanging out.

I don't have to worry about like, you know, them tripping over every step or wandering the street or hitting their head on every other mailbox, right?

And I'm watching you young parents, I'm watching y'all do that.

And I remember it's nauseating.

It was horrible.

Much better being the older guy.

And so I'm watching this, how overwhelming it is for these young parents.

And I see one mom in particular, it may have been you, may not, I'm not gonna say.

She had four kids.

She had one on one hip, and they're all perfectly dressed up.

Perfect.

One on one hip.

Tight gripping a little boy.

He must be a runner.

You know, you see the runner, he's he was a runner.

I'm like, that kid's a runner because she is tight-gripped on that boy.

One here, one here.

She's giving orders to like a five-year-old in front of her, and giving orders to her husband who's a stroller, and another kid in there.

Uh just drowning in kids.

And responsibility.

Drowning in responsibility.

Overwhelmed.

Drowning with something.

We we all know this feeling, just covered up with something.

Maybe it's not kids, your job or family, or your emotions, or finances.

You can be overwhelmed with your loneliness or your boredom.

There's all sorts of things we can be overwhelmed with, even our sin or our guilt or our shame.

To be overwhelmed is to be knocked over, to be submerged.

You see, we we all want life to feel like this.

This is what we want life to feel like.

Right?

You know, it's kind of like Georgia fans today.

Like, that's what we feel like.

We're like, yeah, that's right.

That's who we are.

You you thought you're number one?

No, you're not, okay?

Okay?

That's how we feel, Georgia fans today.

But often life, we feel like this.

That's more what we feel like.

Or an Alabama fan this morning.

You feel kind of like that, just submerged.

And we don't feel we don't feel bad for you because you have like a million championships.

So we don't feel bad.

I don't even feel bad making comments about it because you've been winning for so long that it's so wonderful when it stops.

You know it's true.

This week I read a list of questions in a in a leadership book uh that I'm reading.

Here's a list of questions, maybe it connects with you, certainly connects with me.

Why am I always in a hurry?

Why am I so anxious?

Why am I overly concerned?

Why do I need that one person's approval?

Why do I avoid that conflict?

Why am I so devastated?

Why do I dread that one thing?

Why am I exhausted?

See, when it comes to the heart, we need a secure love and power from outside of ourselves.

We need something that's not earned.

We need something that's that's given.

We need grace.

In Mark chapter 6, we actually learn more details about this story.

Mark 6 · chapter mention

Because Jesus, there in Mark 6, we learned the detail that Jesus actually ordered his disciples to get in the boat and row across the sea.

There in the middle of the day, which was a bad move, because late in the afternoon the high winds came off those hills, they went across that sea, the temperature heated up, and storms came on the water.

But Jesus is step by step leading his disciples and teaching them and teaching us about their condition, about their need, and about his sufficiency.

So they are rowing and rowing with all their might, and it's not enough.

It's just not enough.

The disciples set off across the sea, they're rowing and rowing and rowing late into the evening, they're still rowing.

They had to move at some point from like I can do this, to oh no.

Or something else.

I don't know, I wasn't there.

Probably other words came out because it would have been very fearful.

Will I ever make it through this?

Will I ever know peace or calm?

Again.

9 p.m.

midnight, 3 a.m., they're just rowing and rowing.

A strong wind came upon them.

I mean, they're never gonna, they're never gonna make it.

That would be scary to be out on the water in a storm like that.

It's an image for us of all of our attempts to solve all of our problems with self-reliance, without God, without his help.

Of course, the Sea of Galilee is blowing against you.

Of course.

Of course, you feel like that.

And yet Jesus shows up in our weakness and insufficiency and all that fear.

Point number two is this Jesus pursues and cares for us in our fear and burden.

See, Jesus on the sea represents God's care of us in our fear and burden.

That's what it represents.

To these ancient people, the sea was a very scary place.

Ancient people feared the deep.

The deep was filled with terrifying creatures.

To them, the sea was a place of chaos and death, not of peace and calm.

Jesus walking on the water is a foreshadowing of what he has come to do for these people, their need and his provision.

To trample over death and darkness and scary creatures, Jesus is pointing toward the cross.

The story point us toward the cross.

Where he does walk over, he tramples death and chaos.

Takes on our sin.

Right?

Our sin put upon him on the cross, and his righteousness is given to us, so we are forever his beloved.

Point number three is this Jesus is sufficient for our incapability, weakness, and sin.

A few years ago, our family was visiting my sister and her family in Virginia, and we decided to go one afternoon to an escape room.

You've been to an escape room, they lock you in a room, you pay to be locked in a room to uh like solve a series of problems within the room, and then you free yourself from the room.

And so we picked a 1980s-themed room, you know, had E.T.

and Back to the Future.

And this is us at the end of it.

We made it out, we're smiling, we're pretending because it was quite an hour.

We're kind of my brother-in-law there on the left, he doesn't look as excited as the rest of us.

So, right before the guy locks us in, he says, Hey, by the way, just want to let y'all know, I'll be watching over the camera and I can hear you.

And if you ever need help, just ask for help.

I think we got it, buddy.

Like, just head on.

You don't know.

Like, we got five smart kids.

We're like way overeducated in this family.

Just head on back to your front desk, lock the door, we'll be out in about 15 minutes.

Like, we got this.

Forty minutes later, we are pulling our hair out.

We are stumped, we can't figure it out, we are frustrated.

My brother-in-law's fancy PhD is not helping us at all.

The little ones are now creeped out and scared because the creepy music's just building over the course of the hour.

We are capable only so far.

We're rowing and rowing and rowing into a strong wind.

Hey.

Um, yeah, the the family who acted like we would never need you, um, like we need some help.

Can you can you help us?

We did make it out, and as soon as we made it out, we just walked next door to the counseling office to solve, which is a great business model.

Just counsel.

I know we have some counselors in here.

Just open an escape room for families next door to your counseling office.

And so they go there and just walk next door.

All the issues that come up, you can just walk next door and solve them.

As we said last week, for many of us, the great transformation that we'll go through is as simple as saying, I got this to I need help.

The disciples are worn out, they're at the end of themselves, they are afraid.

Something's out on the water, that's scary.

Um who's there?

It is I.

So some versions say I am.

And then Jesus says this amazing thing where he connects I am, his identity, his pursuit of us, to do not be afraid.

I am, therefore, do not be afraid.

So again, John, just like he did in the feeding of the 5,000, he's taking us back to God's people, Israel, when they were enslaved in Egypt, and they become free.

They become free of the enslavement.

And yet in the story of their freedom, they're stuck up against the Red Sea.

And yet, God provides a way through.

I am, so you don't have to be enslaved to your fear.

Now, maybe you are here, and maybe you are afraid of something.

We all are.

That was point number one.

We can be afraid of losing control.

We can be afraid of not having approval.

We can be afraid of losing comfort or security.

We can be afraid of conflict or failure.

We can be afraid of the guilt or the shame we feel might actually destroy us.

We're going to have fear.

You're gonna have fear.

I'm gonna be afraid of something or losing something, not getting something.

But we don't have to fear fear.

And we don't have to fear God.

Because what we see in this story, what we see in the gospel, we see the story of the scriptures is that he is endeared to you and your weakness.

And he's leading us on a path of less fear, more freedom.

Here's what I think this might mean for us in our hearts and our lives.

Number one is this we can bring our sin, weakness, fears, and wounds to God.

Because he is this for us, this provision, this lavish welcome of grace and love, because he is this, we can actually bring this stuff to him.

We don't have to pretend or perform, which is incredibly good news because we just get so tired of rowing against a strong wind.

His love is not hesitant because you have failure or weakness.

And this also means that we can open ourselves up to the Holy Spirit on a day-to-day basis to say, Holy Spirit, search me, know me, have your way in me.

Help me to find myself in you more.

This deepening of our identity for healing and maturity.

Number two is this.

Number one, we can bring our sin, weakness, fears, and wounds to God.

Number two, because of Christ's work and presence, his objective work in the past, his constant presence with us, because of Christ's work and presence, we can live in calm confidence with God.

Now that's easier said than done.

I'm pretty good at looking confident.

I've kind of mastered that over the course of my life.

We're pretty good at that.

Calm is something else, isn't it?

Because usually I can look confident, but I'm not really calm on the inside.

Actually, a little bit anxious or a mess.

But to be calm and confident, what a gift that we're called to.

And I'm learning what it means for him to guide me through storms to a safe harbor.

Now I am like the ancients.

I feared the deep.

I don't like the sea.

I don't want to be out in a big boat.

Out, don't give me a free cruise trip.

Don't do it, because I'll give it right back to you.

You couldn't pay me.

I'm not interested.

I need options, I need land.

I prefer a car with roads so I can escape.

I can get out of there if something happens.

So I don't want to be out on the sea.

I'm not a sailor.

But I did learn this week that some sailors consider Hatchet Bay in the Bahamas to be the safest harbor in the world.

They consider that to be the safest harbor in the world.

Because the wind and the current can be ripping outside of this harbor.

Here's a picture of that.

It can be ripping, and as soon as you enter that narrow passage, you are in this incredibly calm, safe harbor.

So you can be in a storm and yet not controlled by the storm.

Psychologists actually call this differentiation.

So differentiation is where we find freedom as we differentiate our core selves from difficult problems and people.

So we are in the problem, but the problem doesn't define us.

We're in the problem, but we don't have to abreact to the problem.

Because we understand our true selves to be something else, more deeper, than the problem.

So there may be a storm, you may be rowing fiercely, yet you know you're loved, accepted, grounded, cared for.

So for Christians, this differentiation would be our identity in Christ.

We have a source and a home, a harbor.

We have a safe harbor for our hearts and ourselves.

And this safety comes to us, the forgiveness of Christ, because we are sinners, and through his free forgiveness earned on the cross, we have safe harbor from even our guilt and shame.

We also have safe harbor from our sufferings.

That will journey through our sufferings, and yet at the same time, that suffering doesn't have to define us.

We can differentiate.

What a beautiful picture for us.

Can we put that picture back up of the island?

What a beautiful picture for us.

Of freedom.

Safety and freedom come together in this lavish welcome of the safe harbor that we have in Christ.

We are differentiated because of him, because of his pursuit of us, forgiveness, the wealth of the identity we have in him.

Let's pray together.

God, I thank you for your grace and mercy to us, that you pursue us in our storms and all the ways that we feel overwhelmed.

We want to constantly feel like that Titanic at the beginning of the trip, but so often and we end up feeling overwhelmed and submerged.

Thank you that you pursue us as our lives are a mess, as our hearts are a mess, and that your grace is actually enough.

Thank you that you provide safe harbor, not because we are enough or we have earned it or we're strong enough, but because we are found in your in our weakness, we are found by your strength.

Help us to root more deeply into your goodness for us.

And may we find increased joy, increased freedom, and a way to walk with you day to day.

Thank you for your grace to us.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.