We continue in a day in the life of Jesus after the feeding of the 20,000 but now we have the night episode. During the day the crisis was about the hungry and tired crowds and the disciples inadequacy to meet their needs.
Jesus worked in helping the disciples to trust Him and He provided abundantly. But our desperate situations can also be more personal on the inside where we have fears and anxieties. How does Jesus help here?
John will add to his theme of knowing Jesus as the Son of God and then believing in Him to have real life and how this pertains to our own personal crises. We will see this come from three areas:
Jesus allows crises to happen in our lives but under His supervision.
Jesus assures us that He is God.
Jesus helps us grow in our faith.
Our text is from John 6 but we can also add details from Matthew 14 and Mark 6 about Jesus walking on the water.
Setting
Jesus first dispersed the crowds who wanted to make Him King. He sent His disciples to the boat and went up to pray by Himself. The disciples waited for Jesus but part of His instructions were to head along the Sea of Galilee to Capernaum if He did not arrive by a certain time. They left as it was getting dark, maybe about 19:00.
Jesus allows crises to happen in our lives but under His supervision
As the disciples started out, they faced a strong wind against them, which pushed them out further into the lake. They rowed for about 8 hours and were getting further and further into danger away from the shore.
All this Jesus knew and He saw them in trouble. But He did not come right away. The disciples were doing exactly what Jesus told them to do and because of this, they had a huge crisis.
One of the hardest aspects of the Christian life is that we have difficult problems, many coming from our obedience to Jesus. Trials go on and on and we can doubt God’s love or power.
Both 1 Peter and James talks about the many troubles we have and should expect. They help us grow in our faith
“as we must trust God in our problems and fears.”
It is the fast track to spiritual maturity.
We can be confident, though, that Jesus is in control and supervising the situations, just like with the disciples. This is true even if we don’t know or believe it.
As a result, we can really apply the commands in 1 Peter and James to
“rejoice in our troubles because they have a purpose”
and God is watching over us.
Jesus assures us that He is God
First, He gives a visual lesson on His character in “passing them by”. This is a reference to God’s revealing Himself to Moses in Exodus 33:22-23. Moses experienced God and who He was and the disciples did the same with Jesus.
Second, He assures them in His words. He says to not be afraid but be brave because I AM. He names Himself with the name of God also revealed to Moses. Jesus being God far outweighs all the problems we have in life.
Isaiah 41:10 has echos of Jesus’ words and our peace is dependent on His being God.
But what do we do with our fears and anxieties? We can’t make them stop but we can give them to the Lord. 1 Peter 5:7 says to cast our anxieties on Him because He cares for you. This is our practical help. We give them to the Lord and
“learn more and more to trust His character in the midst of our storms.”
Jesus helps us grow in our faith
Peter walking on the water to Jesus is similar to how all the disciples came to trust the Lord more.
Peter asked Jesus to command him to come and this was his promise. But Peter looked and feared a lesser reality, the wind and waves, over Jesus’ word and began to sink.
He called on the Lord for help and the Lord immediately took hold of him, just like when the disciples shouted in fright when they saw Jesus coming and He answered them.
Jesus’ question of why Peter doubted is not rhetorical but instructive to us to analyze why we doubt Him. What are our frontiers of faith and what don’t we believe about the Lord?
But the ending of Peter’s incident and the disciples reveals how
“Jesus was in control the whole time.”
Peter walks back with Jesus. The wind stops and the boat is immediately where they wanted to go. They all grew in their faith as a result.
We also can and should relive our crises to see how the Lord was faithful in each one. It helps us remember and trust Him for the next one that will surely come. The Lord works in our personal desperate situations so we come to know, love and trust Him all the more.
If you don’t yet know the Lord, He was thrown into a much worse storm for you. He suffered God’s just anger in your place for all the ways that you reject God to follow your own desires. We can disregard God by not being religious or try to manipulate Him by being religious. But Jesus calls you to trust in Him as your Savior as you cannot save yourself. He gives true life found only in Him and gives us His righteousness in taking away our sins.
