Clough John Lesson 30

Christ’s Kingship over the Storms of Life – John 6:14-29

Turn to John 6 and we’ll continue our study of the famous passage of the feeding of the ten thousand. As we said last time John 6 ranked with 1 Samuel 8 as one of the top passages on political theory in the Bible. The reason for it is that John 6 is the classic Biblical response to democracy and to the power of the people, so-called. Mao Tse-tung was quoted as saying that they put away all the ancient gods of China; now says Mao Tse-tung, the people is god, and of course Mao Tse-tung articulated what most believers in absolute democracy believe, that the voice of the people is the voice of God; 51% determine truth. And this is one of those classic passages that has a lot of political wisdom in it. Jesus is at the climax of His popular appeal; He has successfully generated a mass movement; He has a movement that is grading up, number wise, to pressure the authorities. What this chapter shows by way of evidence, and keep in mind the purpose of this Gospel is always to prove that the man Jesus is indeed the Old Testament prophesied Christ, then all the stories of the Gospel must logically support that argument, and when you read a chapter like John 6, the feeding of the ten thousand and then the walking on the water, then somehow if we’re reading this correctly it ought to substantiate John’s major point which is to show that Jesus is the Christ.

And so we always have to ask ourselves, how does this text and how do these verses fit into John’s overall argument. John is showing that Jesus did generate a mass movement. That’s one thing we’ve seen here. Jesus took over many of the followers of John the Baptist and by this point in His career, and remember John 6 is toward the end of Jesus’ life, there’s a big gap between John 4 and John 6, somewhere in there there’s a tremendous amount of His ministry gone. In John 6 we find Jesus definitely succeeding in arousing the masses. So that is an evidence that Jesus Christ made waves. But John had something more important to prove about Jesus than just the fact He generated a mass movement. The problem the early Christians had to face and that John faces in this Gospel is why, if Jesus was Messiah, when He had already generated a mass movement, did He seeming destroy His own movement. Why did He downgrade His popularity. When He was at His peak Jesus did everything He could to destroy His popularity. Why did Jesus turn the people off? And this is something that must be answered to defend the character of Christ. Did Jesus make a mistake? Could a long-prophesied Messiah be in a leadership position, having seemingly succeeded and then blow it just on the eve of His success. Why did Jesus turn away the masses? What is responsible for the decline and fall of Jesus in the eyes of the nation. These are questions that John is answering as he takes us through chapter 6; he is to show that Jesus antagonized the masses as well as He antagonized the leaders. He could have generated a mass movement, He had but He sought to destroy that movement and the discourse that follows in a few verses in this passage is a classic destruction of the people. It is a classic case of destroying a mass movement. Jesus has a mass movement in His palm and by the time He finishes this discourse He has completely disbanded the whole thing.

We have said the setting for John 6 is important. The setting, as it says very clearly in verse 4 was very near to the Passover. The very people who were fed on the eastern shores of the Sea of Galilee were people who were proceeding, shortly to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. They were people, therefore, that had in mind a ceremony that depicted one of the keys to the history of Israel, the Exodus. And so we want to review again a few points about the Exodus; we want to review it’s major concept. I emphasize again we must see this background or we miss completely the thread that holds all these things together in John 6.

The Exodus in world history is the model of political freedom. There have been revolutions in history and freedom movements. The American Revolution was not a revolution, it was a counter-revolution. We have the French Revolution of 1789 and the Russian Revolution of 1917, those are two revolutions, Marxist in orientation, destructive in their force. But none of these revolutions ever brings freedom; they only bring slavery. Now there is one movement in history, unique in history, for bringing freedom into the world and that is the Jewish freedom from Egypt. Why is this so crucial? Because whether you recognize it or not, all concepts of freedom that we hold dear today come out of our Judaic heritage which in turn is grounded on the Exodus. The very word “redeem” means to free. The redemption is a freedom movement, it’s the original one. It is a godly freedom movement.

What is that which distinguishes a godly freedom movement from an ungodly one? What distinguished the Christian Biblical concept of freedom from the Marxist concept of freedom. The difference goes back to the cause. Like we said in the basic series, a diagnosis. The problem the Exodus answered is what is the basis of slavery? The basis of slavery in Egypt was guilt; slaves are people who are doomed and put in bondage by their rebellion against authority, always have and always will be. There are some people who just have a mental attitude of slavery. There are Americans by the millions who have voting rights in this country who are slaves above the eyebrows. They are slaves because every time they vote they vote for servitude; they are slaves because they insist on voting people into office who take away their property. They are masochistic, they enjoy slavery, they enjoy to be plundered by federal power so they can enjoy the temporal blessings of Caesar. These people are slaves; these people have no right to vote. They’re voting your freedom away, but because we have a democracy instead of a republic we’re doomed to watch ourselves, probably one of the first countries in the world to vote away its freedom.

But in the Exodus we have the opposite; we have a freeing, and it goes back to the basis of slavery and the solution in the substitutionary blood atonement. The Exodus is marked by blood, it’s marked by a sacrifice. God solved the guilt problem first, then He solved the freedom problem. The Jews attain their freedom only after the blood has been shed and doom has come upon their master. Slavery can only be broken by atonement; atonement that God provides. It doesn’t matter whether it’s political freedom you’re talking about or spiritual freedom, it goes back to the same thing; there is no freedom apart from blood sacrifice.

Now after the Exodus occurred God assumed Kingship over the nation. Up until this time He was known as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, He was known as the Most High God. At the Exodus and shortly thereafter God had a new name, Yahweh, King of Israel. A king must have a kingdom and so the Exodus is the beginning of the political manifestation of the kingdom of God in history; it begins by blood and it begins in freedom and it begins with God showing how to train people in mental attitudes of freedom. And the key mental attitude in freedom, since from the divine viewpoint freedom is always by substitutionary blood atonement, the key mental attitude is that Yahweh, King of Israel, must instill in the people is the mental attitude of orientation to grace. They must have an orientation to grace, they must go back and they must learn over and over again the lesson that freedom hangs completely on what God does for man, not what man does for man.

Turn to Deuteronomy 8:3; right after the Exodus God gave the manna from heaven. He took them out into the wilderness, a place where they could not have any respite from the sun except they stayed in the daytime in the shadows of the rocks, a place where there is no respite from the dryness and the drought and the barrenness, except around the little pools that you find down at the bases of these rocks. And so God put His people out into the furnace of the wilderness to learn orientation to grace, I support you, and your freedom is only as good as you trust Me for it. And eve before God gave the Law He was pounding into the people a mental attitude that would keep them free and the mental attitude that he wanted in His people was a mental attitude of dependence upon Himself and so we read in Deuteronomy 8:3, “He humbled you,” it’s an address to the nation Israel, “He humbled you,” it’s an address to the nation Israel, “He humbled you and He suffered you to hunger, and He fed you with manna, which you knew not, neither did your fathers know; that He might make to know,” one of the most famous texts in all of Scripture, “that He might make you to know that man does not live on bread only but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD does man live.”

Man, therefore, has as his prime function faith, just like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, faith always comes first, faith in God’s gracious plan and freedom will only come as men have trust in God and His character. The emphasis there was that man does not live on the basis of just sheer finite material resources. That’s not life; life is higher than that. It goes back to the core of your very soul, which is your conscience, and if that isn’t free, and if you haven’t settled the issue there then you haven’t settled the issue with your physical body either. And so the issue of Deuteronomy 8:3 was to show people that bread and food is not life, it goes back to something even greater than that, the character of God Himself, orientation to grace.

It’s with this background that Jesus fed the ten thousand; let’s look at the parallel. The Old Testament, Jehovah or Yahweh; the New Testament, Jesus. In the Old Testament the people wanted freedom and Jehovah gave them freedom; He freed them but he freed them on the basis of the substitutionary blood atonement. After He freed them He trained them in the mental attitude of orientation to grace, that they would always be oriented, not upon the creature but upon the Creator and always realizes it’s because of the Creator has a smile on His face toward them, not because of something inside of them but because He chooses to do so in grace. It was that mentality that God wanted to train them and He trained them in orientation to grace by feeding them in a particular way. And now we have Jesus, the height of a mass movement, what appears to be a sizeable minority of the nation Israel and Jesus as Jehovah is promising them freedom. But the problem is that Jesus has one idea by the word “freedom” and the people have another idea from the word “freedom” and we have two different agendas and they’re in collision. And Jesus will not permit this. When Jesus uses the word “freedom” He means one thing, the people mean another.

And we’ve come to the fact when Jesus, like Jehovah of the Old Testament, He feeds the people. And He tries to show them that on that mountain when they had no food they were utterly dependent upon Him. It was a model to demonstrate over again what manna had done in the Old Testament, that they are dependent upon the King. Yahweh seized control of the nation at the Exodus and he taught people His Kingship and by His Kingship we mean He not only ruled the nation He helped the nation, He under girded the nation, He supplied the nation. All the national blessings came from the divine King. And Jesus takes the people up on the mountain and He too shows them, He’s making the claim that He is King and He provides them food.

So now if you turn to John 6:14 and we’ll pick up the narrative 14. So after Jesus had fed them, after they had gathered together, “Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world.” And they way they speak of the prophet, the one who was coming into the world, present participle, they’re speaking in terms of John the Baptist. John the Baptist had gone through the length and the breadth of the Jordan Valley, up and down there, drawing off the people, warning them that the kingdom is coming, telling them to prepare for the kingdom and he used a special word, a word which is dead today but it used to mean something, the word “repentance.” And John insisted that you’ll never get to the kingdom if you don’t repent, and that means to change your whole framework.

Said in 20^th century America what it means is this goody-good Bible belt mentality of Bible study is all right in its place, but don’t get too fanatical about it, keep it under control, you can get too much doctrine, that kind of the stuff and the rest of the satanic doctrine that goes along with that claptrap. You can’t get enough doctrine, you never can get enough doctrine, that’s a lie. And when you hear people saying that they are voicing the words of Satan himself. That’s the way he keeps people from placing their allegiance in the Word; it’s always conditioned upon whether the Word fits your preconceived framework. And if the Word of God meets your criteria then and only then will you accept it, but one must never abandon your own “common sense,” (quote end quote). One must never abandon his own judgment for the Word of God. It’s always human judgment first, then the Word, never the other way around. And the Bible belt mentality, when it does this is voicing the voice of Satan.

And so the same thing in this day, the kingdom of God was fine but don’t make it too religious, don’t make it too spiritual, and John said no, you must repent. But by this time John the Baptist has been killed, been executed over a birthday present and when he was it left a vacuum. There were thousands and thousands of people that had been stimulated that something was going to happen to the nation, they had no leader and as people began to search around for a leader they latched upon this rabbi who was doing miracles in the further north area, around Galilee, and so they begin to gravitate around Jesus and He picks up all of the remnants of John. And some of these people in verse 14 said yeah, this is the coming one, and it sounds so orthodox, it sounds like these people are on positive volition, that these people are responding to God’s grace. It really sounds like we have a work of God here in verse 14; vast numbers, satisfies all the denomination boys because you can send in your report, how many people came down the aisle, last Sunday how many letters were transferred to your church and all the rest of the junk. It sounds very orthodox. Jesus would have fit it to a “T” here, except Jesus sees something that these people can’t see.

So in John 6:15, “When Jesus, therefore, perceived that they were willing to come and take Him by force to make Him a king, He departed again into a mountain Himself alone.” Now notice the structure; John is setting us up for something and I want you to notice the vocabulary of verse 15. He “perceived that the people were willing,” present tense, they were willing. That conveys a mental attitude or a mindset. He detects something about this mass movement that He doesn’t like. He has discernment; these people can’t see beyond the nose on their face, spiritually, nor can the disciples, but Jesus detects something. His radar gets a signal that something’s wrong. This mass of people is so popular, they seem to be so loyal, and they are exactly 180 degrees out of phase with God’s program. This is very, a hard kind of thing to see, but the Word of God can be popular to people who hate it. Christ can be popular to people who could care less. Don’t you ever be swayed because you have a nice sweet Bible class and hundreds of people come out and it’s so popular and it just must be the work of God. Not necessarily. And don’t be surprised by Christian organizations that multiply and that we have all these people, why look at our growth figures, it’s fantastic.

They had a phenomenal growth figure here and Jesus detected something absolutely wrong with this thing. It’s time we cut them down. Now why? Because these people want to take Jesus and I’ll put the Word of God underneath because that would be equivalent today, and they want to put Jesus inside a box of themselves. They have their plan and Jesus and the Word look like they’d be good for us. These people have their plan to bring freedom to the nation against Roman rule and Jesus provides a wonderful vehicle for their plan. And oftentimes we find the same thing, somebody has this big vision that God gave them, a great ministry, and then preaching the Word and teaching Jesus is a means of fulfilling their own vision and their own plan. This is using Jesus and the message of John 6 is Jesus is not there to use, by you, by me, or by anyone else. Jesus will dictate His own plan and we fit into His, He doesn’t fit into ours.

And so the political agenda are opposite; the crowds have the plan of freedom from Rome and Jesus provides a good vehicle to gain us freedom from Rome; we’re going that way and Jesus is going this way and finally the two collide and they collide right at this chapter. The mass movement driving this way hoping to use Jesus for their plans and Jesus driving this way with the Kingdom of God and His plan. The two cannot remain in fellowship, they must divide, and so Jesus leaves, and he deliberately forsakes the mass, He turns His back upon them and the details in Matthew and Mark say He dismissed the disciples before the end of verse 15, just told them to get out of here. And then after the disciples left the masses He turned to the masses and He told them to get out of the way and He took off.

Now what was this? This was a tremendous shock, it was a tremendous shock to His disciples and to the crowd. It was a shock to the mob and the masses of the movement because like many Americans and like masses of all civilizations, they were the bread and circus people. They wanted big government to give them security, autonomous from God, not a security of trust in God, it was a security of trust in man and his own gimmicks. They wanted freedom from the Romans but they only wanted freedom from the Romans, they didn’t want freedom to worship at the feet of Jehovah, God of the Exodus. The Lord of the Exodus wasn’t going to be their Lord, they were going to be their Lord and therefore that’s the kind of freedom they wanted. And when Jesus turned them off, they felt betrayed. They had lost a great leader. Why, he was so promising, He provide everything we needed, and he turned us off. He voluntary forsook the ticket and left off the campaign. Why did He do this?

And then the disciples had a problem, and even a worse one, one that is now going to be dealt with by the Lord Jesus Christ. Here you have Matthew, Matthew had security inside the establishment of tax collection. Matthew had given up all of his job security and all of his assets to follow Jesus, on the assumption that Jesus was the Messiah and now this! It looked like Jesus was successful and now it looked like He blew it; should I continue to follow Him? Is He really King or not? And then think of John and James, they had a fishing business on the Sea of Galilee, and they had made al their business arrangements to put their business into the hands of the relatives so they would be free to minister to this Jesus and now look what happened? The whole think looks like it cave in; is he really King? Can He be the king and do this kind of thing? And so the disciples have their doubts as to who and what Jesus is.

And so we go to the next section of the narrative; John 6:16, “Evening had now come, His disciples went down unto the sea, [17] And they entered into a ship, and began to go over the sea toward Capernaum.” To gain some geographical background for this let’s look at some slides for a moment. Here we have the northern area of Israel, the Sea of Galilee; it’s not a sea, it’s a lake. The disciples and Jesus have been on the northeast side, somewhere along here and Capernaum is over here to the northwest. And they’re making this trip; notice the trip is not across the wide part of the lake. Here is the north end of the sea of Galilee with the entrance of the Jordan River. [He continues showing slides]

Keep in mind as you read John 6 that is what they’re crossing. They got about halfway across and Jesus came out and was walking on the water there. So it’s not that large a lake but it’s a very treacherous lake. People who have been on the ocean all their life tend to dismiss the power of wind on fresh water, usually with fatal results because fresh water can be whipped up much faster than salt water since it’s lighter, less dense, and it’s extremely dangerous. In fact today, you go to the Sea of Galilee, all around the Sea of Galilee you’ll see the Israeli national police in boats, constantly patrolling, constantly making sure that your life jackets are on, always there connected by radio so that the moment a storm comes upon the Sea of Galilee they flush all the boats off the sea because even to this day it is extremely dangerous. Because of the unique way those hills come down upon the fresh water the wind is increased. If you’ve had a little aeronautical engineering it’s the [can’t understand word] principle where you have air restricted to a certain area and it speeds up in its forward motion. And the same effect occurs on the sea of Galilee, it is extremely treacherous and very quick, and so this the scene of verse 17.

John 6:17, “They entered into a ship, and, they went over the sea toward Capernaum. And it had now become dark, and Jesus had not come to them. [18] And the was arising, by reason of a great wind that blew.” The last part of verse 17 and the first part of verse 18 are connected very closely in the original; so the two events, Jesus not coming and then looking out and watching this quick storm coming occur very close. And the Holy Spirit intends that these events be very closely tied because it produces a situation that Jesus Himself has set up to teach the disciples something very, very elementary about life, but one they must understand or this whole kingdom is going to go down the drain. They’ve got to learn this. Is Jesus King or isn’t He, after He dismisses this mass movement.

And so at this time the sunset, remember these men knew the lake and they knew that was going to happen. These men lived on the sea, all their life, they’d done business out there, they were caught in storms before, and so you can see them coming down on the beach just getting really nervous because the storm is coming up, night is falling, and they’ve got to get across to the other side, they know what’s going to happen if they wait too long. And so they go down to the edge and they wait, and they keep waiting, and they wait and they wait and they wait and as the text says, now “darkness had come,” so the sun set and the and began to blow so they lost their light on the lake, and with the wind blowing, and with it probably raining but at least with the wind blowing you have disturbance of visibility, you get out there and it’s a big mess. And we’ll see the wind was blowing from the west, it wasn’t blowing away from them so they could sail with it, it was blowing against them so they had to row against the wind. And so caught in this situation they decide they’re going across. The disciples now are tested; are they going to remember the lesson that they had just seen on the mountain, that Jesus, as the Lord of the Exodus, as Lord Yahweh, split the Red Sea and had power over nature, as Lord Yahweh, Lord of the Exodus fed the people in the wilderness, and as Jesus has just shown He too can feed people in the wilderness, is the same Lord Jesus who feeds people like Lord Yahweh did in the Exodus able to control nature forces; are they or are they not going to trust Him as king over nature before He can ever be trusted as king over people.

Now His kingdom program proceeds on the nature of who and what a king is and the king and the kingdom of God must be one who is king of the universe, as well as king of people, that qualifies him. And so this little your episode you’re about to witness has as its purpose to train the disciples, this is category six type suffering, suffering to learn a lesson, they’re going to suffer out in the middle of the storm to learn a lesson. Is Jesus King? We question it, says Matthew, I left my tax collecting business and now He does this, I’m not so sure He’s king after all. And probably John and James said the same thing, yeah, we gave up our fishing business and we’re not so sure this Jesus is king after either. So Jesus will show them that though He has rejected the masses He’s still King. He is still the Lord of the Exodus; He still is King over nature.

The Psalm one of the great Psalms is going to become an issue here so if you’ll turn back to Psalm 29 we’ll see sharply in focus what kind of a King Christ is trying to show Himself to be. Like we’ve said, you can’t get into the gospel until you define the nature of God and Jesus is doing the same thing with these people, you can’t have a kingdom people unless you trust Me in the right way, you’re oriented to grace and My nature. And so Psalm 29 pictures the trust in the Lord as King over creation.

Psalm 29:1, “Give unto the LORD, O ye mighty, give unto the LORD glory and strength.” Now notice verse 2, “Give unto the LORD the glory due His name,” now how do you give glory to God that is due His name? What does “name” mean? His essence, the doctrine of divine essence. And so giving God the glory for His name means that you respond to His essence, to His character, the fact that He is who He is makes a difference in your life. That means “give glory due His name.”

“…worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.” And the it goes on to give us in this Psalm of David how worship would occur. The next few verses give the praise items of a believer who really trusts in the Lord as King. Notice the words, Verse 3, “The voice of the LORD is upon the waters.” And where are the disciples right now? “The God of glory thunders,” and what’s happening to the weather on the Sea of Galilee? “And the LORD is upon many waters,” and shortly the Lord will be literally upon many waters, won’t He? [4] “The voice of the LORD is powerful,” Jesus is going to say something and the wind is going to stop. “…the voice of the LORD is full of majesty. [5] The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars; yea, the LORD breaks the cedars of Lebanon. [6] He makes them to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion are like a young unicorn. [7] The voice of the LORD divides the flames of fire. [8] The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness; the LORD shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. [9] The voice of the LORD makes the hinds to calve, and He discovers the forests; and in His temple does everyone speak of His glory.” And now look at this verse, “The LORD sits upon the flood, yea, the LORD sits King forever.” There’s the essence of the God the Scripture, King. What kind of a King? The King that is on the many waters, the King that has power over nature.

Now remember, the people in that day picture things concretely. We can use nature forces and maybe when I used that word a few minutes ago it conjured up all sorts of scientific imagery in your mind; you may have thought of intergalactic forces that operate, you may have thought of cosmic rays, you might have thought of the earth’s magnetic seal, you might have thought of all these scientific discoveries that man has made about the creation but to these people in this time what was the most dreaded nature force? It was the storm at sea, it was the water that you just couldn’t stop, it was the tidal surges that slammed against the beach in heavy Mediterranean storms; that was the nature force. They didn’t know about cosmic rays, they way they expressed themselves, they took the most potent nature force they knew in their experience and it was floods and storm and wind, and then they held this up, and if the Lord is the Lord of these, then He’s the Lord of all. We would further extend it with out greater scientific understanding of the creation we’d say the Lord Jesus Christ and His Word stands above the cosmic rays, the Lord and His Word stands above gravitation, the Lord and His Word stands above the principles that control the atomic nucleus.

The Lord and His Word stand over all physical forces. And the way they conceived standing over was as in the end of Psalm 29:10, King, “He sits on the flood.” What’s the position of sitting but relaxing, not threatened, He sits on it, not in the least perturbed by the most vicious nature forces that man had ever seen. Now the application, verse 11, this Lord, “the LORD who sits King forever,” He will what, “He will give strength unto His people, and He will bless His people with peace.” See, to have the kingdom you have to first worship Him and give Him the glory that is due His name.

Now come back to John 6 for the lesson, a lesson in suffering that in a microcosm I suppose we all go through at one time or another in our life because Jesus is going to teach us the same thing and we are going to learn it, whether we have to learn it the easy way or the hard way, because it’s the only way you can get in shape to give Christ the glory due His name. And so the disciples begin to cross. And in John 6:19 it says “And when they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs,” that’s halfway across, this looked very easy and under normal conditions you can row across, no problem. But not this night, not in the dark, not with the wind whipping up the waters like it’s whipping them now. And so when they were halfway across, and it’s neat how the Holy Spirit in verse 19 prepares a way of defense against Biblical critics, for the critics have always tried to explain this away by saying well, you see, the disciples saw Jesus walking on the beach and thought He was walking on the water. Now if you looked at the picture I took from Tiberius you’re not going to see anybody walking on the other side of the lake, least of all thinking that they’re walking on the water nearby.

And here they are out in the middle of the lake, they weren’t near the beach, they hadn’t come all the way over to the west side yet, they were still in the middle of it, and notice, those of you who have the King James translations, here’s one of those times when the King James translation really shines, because it says they see Jesus, it’s present tense, John is excited as he write this, and He casts it not in the past but in the present tense, he says look, “they’re seeing Jesus walking on the sea,” now you lose that phrase, you think of it as just kind of a cheap Sunday school miracle, walking on water, ha-ha, if you didn’t read Psalm 29. Walking on water means more, doesn’t it, because what was the Lord? He was the Lord that sits, He was upon the waters and he sits upon the flood, He is the King forever. And so what do they see walking across but Yeshua, He’s walking on the sea. And He’s “drawing near to the ship,” He’s not just walking on the beach, “He’s drawing near to the ship, and they were afraid.” What did Psalm 29 say? Psalm 29 said, “And He will give His people strength and peace.” And so they are afraid, they’re terrified. Matthew and Mark report the fact, this occurs around 3:00 a.m. in the morning, it’s taken them that long, it’s taken about five hours to row half way across so it shows you what bad shape they’re in. Now if you row for five hours I guarantee you as a former member of a heavy weight crew team you are pretty well fagged.

And so at this point they don’t know what to expect, you know, they’re right in the middle of a storm and all of a sudden ghosts start dropping out of the clouds. But then in verse 20 Jesus makes one of His fantastic statements; it looks innocuous in the translation, “But He saith unto them, It is I; be not afraid.” So sweet, but it’s a lot more than sweet because what he has just said, ego eimi, the word I AM, the word used in the Old Testament for God. How does Jesus reveal His character? I AM in the same way Yahweh did to Moses at the burning bush, “I AM.” I AM the One who was with you to deliver you, and I AM here. What did Psalm 29 say? I will give strength to My people, “I AM here, be not afraid.” So the disciples disappointed after watching Him dismiss the masses, thinking the Messianic movement was all over, Jesus blew it, Jesus very carefully keeps them from depression and He comes out at the low point in their mental attitude, boy are the low, they’ just watched the whole thing go down the drain because apparently of a stupid decision on Jesus’ part, then they go out there and they’re just about ready to drown and along comes “I AM” and “be not afraid.”

And then it says in John 6:21, “Then they willingly received Him into the ship; and immediately the ship was at the land where they were going.” Now between verse 20 and 21 several things occurred, and to pick those several things up we must go to Matthew 14 for Matthew’s account of what happened. It’s very amusing to watch the different Gospel writers; they were inspired, they wrote inspired texts but it didn’t free them from their own human views and humor and each one kind of wrapped on the other. Peter had a lot to do with the Gospel of Mark; Mark was a young boy who used to take notes and apparently the Gospel of Mark had some influence on Peter, whether Mark sat there and listened to Peter and listened to Peter and listened to Peter and took a lot of notes and finally came up with the Gospel but Peter had a lot to do with the way Mark looks at things. And when Mark reports this event, He’s going to describe it one way, Matthew is going to describe it another way. Watch the difference.

Matthew 14:24, “But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with the waves; for the wind was contrary.” It was blowing from the west to the east and they were trying to go from the east to the west. [25] “And in the fourth watch of the night,” around 3:00 a.m. “Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea. [26] And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, it is a spirit; and they cried out for fear. [27] But quickly Jesus spoke unto them, saying, Be of good cheer, ego eimi, be not afraid.” See, they heard Him say “I AM,” I AM, and Matthew and Mark don’t emphasize what John later emphasizes. Do you know what He really said? See, John’s reflecting on this later. Now verse 28, Mark never reports this, only Matthew, “And Peter answered Him and said, Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come unto Thee on the water.” [29] And He said some ahead. And when Peter had come out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. [30] But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and began to sink, and he cried, saying, Lord, save me. [31] And Immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and saith unto him, O ye of little faith, why did you doubt?” Obviously it’s an amazing thing to go out walking on water, it doesn’t happen every time of the day and there wasn’t ice out there either, so Peter as he walks on the water begins to look at this.

There’s going to be a lesson coming out of this but right now just remember how to view this in terms of Psalm 29. What did Psalm 29 say? These are nature forces, the worst possible forces that come upon man; Jesus is claiming to be the same King Jehovah is. He’s able to control those forces. Peter goes out and he’s making a bet; Jesus or the wind, the Creator or the creature, who’s greater? Is Jesus claim to be King superior to my natural fear of these forces upon me as a creature; who is superior in this situation. He asked permission to be tested, notice, that’s what it is because you know who set this whole thing up, because Jesus dismissed them and got there so they could deliberately go across and get stuck in the middle and He’d come out to get them. He deliberately set this whole thing up, and so Peter is asking to be tested. Peter doesn’t think so, he probably thinks of it as a big thrill, gee, I’d like to try that. All right, climb on out. And he’s this kind of a person, very outgoing type. All the rest of the disciples, they’re just nice and relaxed, Jesus is there, that’s fine for them but Peter has to g one more, let’s see if I can do it too. So he tries it. And as he walks out there what’s happening; the text clearly says… before it says he was afraid in verse 30, it says “he saw the wind” so he got his eyes again on nature and on circumstances and on adversity and on pressure and the moment he did his fear came; he lost his faith because he was looking at the wrong place.

And then Jesus rebukes him in verse 31, and the rebuke is the important part of this whole story because the rebuke of verse 31 suggests that Peter, in fact, should have, they all should have crawled out of the boat and walked on the water. And Jesus says you don’t have much faith; you know those masses, they didn’t have any faith; I’m surprised you’ve been with Me so long and you have about that much faith a big improvement on them; you’re worried about Me starting a mass movement, huh, from this material. You can’t start a mass movement for the kingdom of God with people that can’t trust the King. And that’s His whole point demonstrating to the disciples, you people don’t trust Me yet, you’re not ready for My kingdom; the masses aren’t ready and neither are you. This is Matthew’s account, it has all this about Peter.

Now turn to Mark 6:51 for his account, “And he went up unto them into the boat; and the wind ceased; and they were amazed,” and then Mark adds in verse 52 a little footnote, a footnote that explains what’s happening; they were amazed, the wind stopped, and what did Psalm 29 say? It said that He is over and sits upon the water and upon the wind, God’s nature. But then Mark, in verse 52 draws this conclusion: why were they amazed, why did it cause this wonder; it says, “For they considered not the miracle of the loaves; for their heart was hardened.” The miracle of the loaves was intended to demonstrate that Jesus was Jehovah, Lord of the Exodus, who had fed them manna in the Old Testament, the King who supplies people with strength and peace. And the masses never got the issue, the whole thing was lost on them and now this shows even the disciples never got the issue, it was lost on them too. Notice that Mark did not repeat one little incident of somebody crawling out of the boat. He just simply noted that the disciples didn’t believe; protected Peter.

Turn back to John 6:21, So Jesus says who He is, “ego eimi,” and years later John said do you know what He really said, He said He was God at that point, “be not afraid.” [21] “Then they willing received Him into the boat and the immediately the boat was at the land,” whether that’s a direct miracle or not, the rest of them just say the wind stopped and so apparently rowing was very easy, very short and they got to the other side of the lake very quickly. Now one lesson has been learned. At the end of verse 21 Jesus has shown to His disciples that “I am King because I am the King of Psalm 29 that sits upon the water, I control nature, now do you trust My Kingship. You must trust My Kingship.

Now in John 6:22 He turns to his other problem, the masses. The disciples are nor reassured, they haven’t given up their jobs and all their plans for life for vain, Jesus is indeed who He claims to be except right now things don’t look too good for the kingdom because the kingdom must come by faith. “The day following, when the people who stood on the other side of the sea saw that there was no other boat there, except that one into which His disciples were entered, and that Jesus went not with His disciples into the boat, but that His disciples were gone away alone,” I want you to notice verses 22-23, how John the Apostle is very careful to give us empirical evidence, to give us all the details so these people weren’t confused, he gives you the basis on which he reasoned and he shows very clearly in verses 22-23 that the people reasoned in their own heads from the data that something happened to get Jesus across that lake. [23, “Nevertheless, there came other boats from Tiberias near unto the place where they did eat bread, after the Lord had given thanks)— [24] When the people, therefore, saw that Jesus was not there, neither His disciples, they also took boats and came to Capernaum, seeking for Jesus.”]

And He didn’t go by boat, so now the masses have another problem; oh, OH, we want freedom from Rome, we just lucked out, we’ve got a guy that not only gives us food any time we need it, that gives us the bread and circus we crave but this guy’s got mobility like you can’t believe; how handy that would be in our hands to use for our purpose in thwarting the Roman power. Very interesting, so when they approach Jesus in verse 25 that’s exactly where they start in. “Rabbi, when did you come here?” In other words, they’re quizzing Him on maybe a new trick that He does that they can use for their plan. And Jesus, like He did with Nicodemus cuts right through the issue; He sees that He’s being used again, and Jesus is not one that you can use, I can use, or anyone else can use; He uses us, we don’t use Him.

John 6:26, “Jesus answered them, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, You see, Me, not because you saw the miracles, but because you did eat of the loaves, and were filled.” So He brands their problem and here He exposes the heart of the masses. The heart of the masses are unregenerate and they’re work centered, they’re not grace oriented, they’re not trusting him if they are believers, they are totally out of it. Remember, the most basic doctrine of all doctrines is the doctrine of faith. When God set forth in the divine viewpoint framework, when God worked with Israel, where did He start? The call of Abraham. And what’s the great lesson we associate with the call of Abraham? Faith. The call of Abraham occurred before the Exodus, before Sinai, before the conquest, before King David, what was the lesson God wanted first known? How to use the faith technique, that’s basic. If you don’t know how to do that forget it, write off all the rest of it, all the law, all the wisdom, everything else, only follow the use of the faith technique.

So the crowd thinks that they’re going to use Him and He says huh-un, you’re seeking me not because you have bowed your knee to My plan and are trusting Me as the Lord over creation and the Lord over the Exodus, but because you were filled. Short term happiness of the kingdom man, always the short term, always the present, think only of the present, never of the future. This is why so much business today is transacted on the buy now pay later basis. Do you know why that’s there? There’s a theological reason for it, don’t kid yourself. It’s not because the Bank of America and Master Charge came up with the idea; it came up because the masses of American want it. It wasn’t a plot by bankers and businessmen to fake people out, they’re just catering to the lust of their customers and the customers don’t want to think of the future, all they want to do is enjoy the present, a present-centered generation, like this one. You’re filled, you don’t think of the long term, you only think of the immediate area.

John 6:27, “Labor not for the meat which perishes,” stop laboring for this, you are the food which perishes, and when He uses the word “perish” He uses the same word He did in verse 12, remember when we pointed out after He had made all the barley loaves, what did He tell the people to do? I want you to go around and pick up the scraps, lest they perish. Why did He go back over to see that seemingly incongruous thing about picking up the food. Yes, it was to get twelve baskets for the disciples but it also had another purpose; to demonstrate that the kind of food He made there was perishable food, it was food that rots, it was food that isn’t good tomorrow, it’s only good for today. And so as great as that miracle was, Jesus left a flaw in it to tell them see, I’ve made food for you but you really don’t want that food; you need something more long-term than that present centered stuff. And so here He refers to it, you stop laboring for that kind of food that I gave you over there, that food’s no good, it’s not going to help you in the long term. What are you going to do when you die, when you’re on your death bed and you have minutes to leave, T-bone steak isn’t going to help.

What does He say, labor “for the food which endures unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you, [for Him has God the Father sealed.]” and remember the titles in this Gospel, Jesus always refers to Himself very carefully, “the Son of man,” where did that come from? Daniel 7. What is the sign of the Son of man? He is the millennial King. The Son of man, all the symbols of Daniel’s kingdoms are animals except one, the fifth kingdom; they’re all beasts showing that the societies are subhuman, and the only society that is ever erected in history that comes up to where man should be and how he should live is the one brought in and characterized as that of the Son of man. So when Jesus uses the title “Son of man” He identifies Himself with that future event in history when the kingdom of God breaks into history and you have men living corporately and socially and politically in all ways as man was created to live. The human race fulfills its destiny. And so what does Jesus say? You want a king and you want a kingdom and you want happiness and you want the perfect environment, the Son of man who is the Lord of the perfect environment, He will life everlasting. And notice He uses the word “give” in verse 27, the word “give” is the verb of grace and He emphasizes that from start to finish the kingdom of God is given, you don’t work at it, it’s given, I gave you the food on the mountain, I made that and I gave it to you as a present, I made sure that the grass was there and I gave you a place to sit down while you were eating it, I gave you all that, you still don’t understand me that it’s all by grace. And the proof of it is, verse 28-29. He no sooner gets the word grace out of His mouth and look what they ask him in verse 28?

John 6:28, “Then they said unto Him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?” Total blindness. On a small scale I know exactly how Jesus must have felt. You can sit here and you can teach the Word of God and teach the Word of God until you are blue in the face and it never fails that within five minutes somebody asks some asinine question that shows they didn’t tune in one bit. And you just feel like oh Lord, let’s start all over. Let’s just clean the slate, erase the tape and let’s rerun the thing. And it’s the same thing right here, He has just got through demonstrating, in the most miraculous way possible, their happiness can only come by His direct provision as a gift. The didn’t pay for the food, it was all a gift. He’s just demonstrated grace again by telling them that I’m going to give you eternal life. The Son of man gives you that and they turn around with this brilliant statement, totally and completely hardened in their heart. These people may have been brilliant, some of these people may have had the highest IQ in Galilee that came over here, the people in Jerusalem wouldn’t think of anybody with high IQ in Galilee but there were people with high IQ in Galilee, and they were included in this crowd. From the intellectual level they had everything going for them except spiritually they couldn’t see the nose in front of their face. The heard the words and the words went in one ear and out the other. Grace, what do you want to do; grace, how can we work the works of God; a gift, the works. Two different agendas. Remember I said the King wants his kingdom this way, beginning with faith, first, last and always. People want this, even in Christian circles this happens.

Verse 27, 28 and 29 are a classic rebuke to many religious groups and organizations because no sooner do we say oh yes, you’re saved by grace, you can’t say anything else or you’d be declared a heretic, so it’s obvious that you have to at least give lip service at the point of salvation, and then once everyone, so to speak, is in the club, then we plot and scheme how to do the work of God, what would be a good work to do, let’s help this person or let’s help that person, or let’s do this or let’s do that, always activity, activity, activity, activity. And we fail to appropriate the faith technique, fail to exercise it, fail to use it, fail to apply it, just roll right on like it was water off a ducks back.

What does Jesus say in verse 29, the classic response, “Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God,” believe. See He deliberately takes the two verbs, you people don’t understand it, okay, I’m going to put it here in black and white so clearly you can’t misunderstand it. This is the work of God, “believe on the One whom God has sent to you.” Oh, but we can’t do that, why Jesus, if we trusted You that might mean You might not give us the kind of kingdom that we want. Like the single person, I can’t really trust the Lord for my future mate because he might give me Mr. or Mrs. Ugly, I can’t really go that far, that’s being a little too fanatical, now this trust business is all right in its place but be careful lest it get total control of you. So let’s keep the gear in low gear and watch this business about trusting too much, we run risks trusting; why if we trusted in Christ for expansion of our business instead of using cutthroat techniques that our competitors use we might be out of business tomorrow, we’d better watch out, that trusting is nice while you’re in LBC and Clough is in the pulpit but when you walk out the door just put your common sense on and don’t get to fanatical about the Word. That concept. It’s a bunch of satanic crap is what it is.

Let’s turn to Psalm 29, I want to conclude by pointing again to certain verses in this Psalm because these verses demonstrate the point that will be gone over again two or three more times before Jesus is finished and it gives a good parting shot at our challenge to trust the Lord in everything. Verse 2, think in terms of what you’ve just seen about the lake crossing, about the boat issue, about these people seeking their agenda and now let’s read Psalm 29 with that added material we’ve just been exposed to and see if it gives us more body to it.

Psalm 29:1, “Give unto the LORD, O ye mighty, give unto the LORD glory and strength.” Who are the “mighty?” The leaders, the people who will rule in the kingdom, in this case the disciples. Didn’t Jesus say the disciples would rule in the kingdom. “Give unto the LORD, O ye mighty, give unto the LORD glory and strength,” and how are you going to give glory and strength if you’re not convinced he gets glory and strength. It has to be demonstrated, and so the mighty, well, in a very weak way, in the boat, tossed with the wind and Jesus showed them His glory and His strength. His glory, what did He say to them? Ego eimi! And His strength, what happened to the wind when He got into the boat? It stopped.

[2] “Give unto the LORD the glory due unto His name; and worship the LORD in the beauty of His holiness.” Now can the people worship the King. [3] “The voice of the LORD is upon the waters.” And what had Jesus said as he walked across? It is Me, stop being afraid. “The God of glory thunders; the LORD is upon many waters. [4] The voice of the LORD is powerful,” the wind stopped, and the boat immediately got to the other side; for five hours these men rowed and they rowed and they rowed and they only got halfway across; in a matter of minutes they got the other half done, the difference was with the Lord. [5] “The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars,” and it goes on and describes the natural forces. And finally verse 10 again, “The LORD sits upon the flood,” in a position of rest, the flood doesn’t bother Him, the tempest doesn’t dislodge the Lord, “the LORD sits forever.” Eternal, never to be changed, never to be replaced, never another king in this dynasty, only one King, an eternal dynasty. And [11] “the LORD will give strength to His people,” He did to the disciples on the boat, on the sea, and “the LORD will bless His people with peace,” when they learn to trust Him.

Father, we thank You….