In the stories of the Lord Jesus
we have continuing pictures of who He is and how He saves His
people in this world. You will call His name Jesus
for He will save His people from their sins. How He saves His
people in this world and how He sovereignly orchestrates the
things of providence. things that would be distressing
to men. He orchestrates them for their
good. always for their good. As we
saw last week, one of the things that we're so likely to forget,
aren't we, that God is a God of compassion and God is a God
of care. And so we see more evidence in
this story of the nature of our God and the nature of the way
He lovingly, sovereignly cares for each and every one of His
own. And so here was this crowd. that
had been fed miraculously by the Lord. And all feeding of
all people at all times is a miracle. The sun is shining at the moment
because it's a miracle. Hebrews says that it's only shining
because the Lord Jesus makes it shine. It only ever rains
because of a miracle. Every feeding of every person
in this world is a constant miracle. We live in a world of ongoing
constant miracles. Psalm 72 says the Lord only does
marvelous things. And here was this crowd that
had been fed. The apostles had been honored before this crowd
as the ones who were there to distribute the things of the
Lord. And now John tells us that this crowd wanted to make Jesus
king. They wanted to proclaim to nation
Israel that the Messiah had indeed come, and now was their time
of deliverance. Now nation Israel was going to
assume its rightful place in this world, the place of preeminence
before all the nations. Now there was the coming time
when they were going to be delivered from the Romans, and then the
blessings of God would be poured out for all the world to see. They would be honoured as a nation
of kings and priests, not just over that little piece of land
called Palestine, but over the whole world. All their years
of hardship, all their years of subjugation under the Romans,
all their years of slavery would now be repaid double to them.
They wanted to make Jesus King, and for the apostles, this would
have meant that they would have had exalted positions in this
kingdom. They were the special chosen
representatives of the Lord. So what an opportunity. Here
before them was their Messiah, for whom nothing was impossible. If food was needed, He could
provide it. If sickness threatened, He could
heal. If death came upon people, He
can raise the dead. How on earth can you have a King
like this and not be victorious? The Kingdom of God is at hand.
And now is the time for real action, says this crowd. Galilee
is too small for this movement. Now it's our time to take our
place in this world. And this is so reminiscent of
the devil's temptation of the Lord Jesus in the desert, isn't
it? He says to him, I will give you, Jesus, all the kingdoms
of the world if you will bow down and worship me. And so into
this extraordinary situation, the Lord Jesus acts as He always
does. He acts with great authority.
He acts as the sovereign God of promise. So out of this crowd
He commands. In fact, it says that He compelled
or He drove His disciples to get into a boat. to get into
a boat, to row away from this crowd, to get into a boat and
row straight into strong winds and raging waves which made them
toil and be distressed. They were compelled by Jesus
to row into this raging sea where they would feel and know their
powerlessness and their helplessness. We have a saying, don't we? We
took farmers from a cock rooster to a feather duster. So often
what seems to be exalted in the eyes of men can be reduced to
something far, far from what we would like it to be. And so he also sovereignly commands
and sends the crowd away. It's strong language. And just
like the apostles, they are compelled to go against their will and
against their fleshly interests. They are sent away, and Jesus
reveals his sovereignty. So far are they from having the
ability to make Him King. They cannot even remain in His
presence except by His will. He sends them away. And then
He Himself goes away from all of this and goes to a mountain
to pray to His Father. It's interesting, isn't it, how
often the Lord Jesus goes away from crowds, goes away from where
the world would exalt Him and honour Him, and goes away and
spends time with His Father in prayer, all night in prayer. And in this particular evening,
it seems that He was there praying with His Father for at least
six hours and probably longer. And so there are so many things
that the Lord Jesus is teaching us here, isn't it? The first
one is that the kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom. The Kingdom
of God will not be honoured in this world. The Kingdom of God
will not be advanced by human work, human worth and human will. Jesus, the King, will not be
made King by men's activities. He has always been the King.
He always is the King. And as King, He will make men
bow before His throne as He sees fit. So, He sends the apostles
away from a place of preeminence in the world's eyes to a place
of trouble and danger. And He sends this crowd away
to their towns and home. He will never let Himself be
made the plaything of the whims and the will of man. He goes
to His Father in the midst of what would have been, as the
scriptures tell us, just one of the temptations that beset
the Lord Jesus continually. He knows what it is like to live
in our flesh and to be beset by the temptations. He's touched
with the feelings of our infirmities. He knows, fully knows what it
is to be human. But he goes to his Father and
says, as he so often did, Your will be done. The Kingdom of
God is advanced by submission to God the Father's will and
purposes. His throne is a throne that's
established by righteousness and justice, Psalm 89.14 says. They are the foundations of your
throne. Love and faithfulness go before
you. The kingdoms of this world are
established by might and force, power and persuasion, by subjugation
and oppression. But God's kingdom is not a kingdom
of this world, and it doesn't seek the rewards that this world
offers, and it doesn't seek the rewards that this world gives
to people. He cannot be king, manifestly
king, the Lord Jesus, until he goes to the cross. And there
he triumphs through ignominy. He's exalted through dying. He's honoured by suffering. He's made worthy and makes all
of his bride worthy by the humiliation he suffers at the hands of wicked
men. The crown comes after the cross. This flesh, our flesh, must be
crucified. But in that crucifixion, in that
turning of God's people away from the things of this world,
putting to death their flesh, is the triumph. And Colossians
2.15 says that He disarmed the rulers and authorities and He
made a public display of them, triumphing over them at the cross. So the Lord Jesus went away to
pray. And the Lord Jesus, when he's
praying, is still God, the sovereign God who sees and sees all things. In verse 47, it says, When it
was evening and the boat was in the middle of the sea, about
three and a half miles, six kilometers from land, and He was there alone. 48 gives
us two wonderful descriptions of our Lord's sovereignty. Firstly,
in 48, He says, He saw them. Jesus sees. He sees everything
in this world. There is nothing hidden from
the eyes of God. And He knows the things that
are happening in our life better than we know them. He knows about
the struggles that you've had last week and He knows about
the struggles you'll have this week coming. And He knows that
your flesh is weak. It's very, very weak. He knows
that we are but dust. He knows that our lives pass
through this world as if it was a vapor, like a flower that's
here and gone tomorrow. He knows that human beings cling
to life just by a thread. But He's a God who sees His people. In fact, the verse says that
they were straining at the oars, they were actually tormented
by the wind and the waves. But they were against them. And
so these men who were experienced fishermen had spent all night
rowing and they probably hadn't rowed much more than 500 meters
an hour. It was a pretty hopeless effort.
the more they strained against them, the more than the wind
and the waves beat against them, and the more they were made to
realise their helplessness. And so often in life, isn't it,
we just struggle and strain and the first thing we often think
is that where is the Lord in this? Does He see? Does he know
what's happening? He does see. He does know everything. Not only does he see, not only
does he know, but he providentially brings the wind and the waves. It was his wind. It was his waves. He put them in that ship and
he sent them into it. The Lord God is sovereign ruler
over them. Job says, Who alone stretches
out the heaven and tramples down the waves of the sea? Psalm 104
says, Covering yourself with light as with a cloak, stretching
out the heaven like a tent curtain. He lays the beams of his upper
chambers in the waters. He makes the clouds his chariots,
and he walks upon the winds of the wind. So He's a God who sees,
a God who sovereignly controls. But more than that, the Lord
Jesus in verse 48, He comes to them. He comes walking on the
sea. This book causes so much grief
in its understanding to so many people. The only way we can possibly
understand this Book is if we see it spiritually and supernaturally. You take the supernatural out
of this and there is nothing left, nothing but fairy stories,
the supernatural understanding that God is above this creation
and God does things which are beyond our imagining. God who
surprises people. People often think that it would
be nice to be back there when the apostles were walking around.
It would have been lovely to see Jesus in Galilee and to see
Him in His carpenter shop and to be there when He was feeding
these people and to be there when He was raising people from
the dead. Just think of what these poor apostles went through.
The whole world was just turned upside down and Jesus was in
the business of turning it upside down day after day after day. Every time they think they had
something organised, Jesus would come along and show another aspect
of what it is for Him to be God and they were left perplexed.
In this particular case, they see him walking on the sea in
verse 50, and they were terrified. There they had been just a little
while ago, handing out this miraculous bread and these miraculous loaves
of fish and feeding thousands and thousands of people, and
now they meet Jesus again, and they're terrified. So often the Lord Jesus will
do things that cause us to be perplexed and He will take away
from us the supports that we get from our human thinking and
He will leave us like these apostles in a place where we are tormented
and terrified. But then He comes and He brings
peace, and He brings peace in a marvelous way. He brings peace
to these apostles in the way that He always brings peace to
people. He brings peace by speaking. He's a God who is the Word, and
He spoke to them. And he says, take courage. It
is I. Do not be afraid. He comforts his people with a
word. He literally says to them, I
am. Take courage. Don't be afraid
any longer. I am. He's proclaiming to these people
the deity of who he is. He's proclaiming his sovereignty.
I am. And he speaks a word and brings
peace. The same word that he spoke to
his apostles when he came back having been crucified and resurrected,
the first word he says to his apostles is peace. That same
night he says to them, peace I leave with you, my peace I
give to you. and he says these things to them
in John 16, that to you, that in me, in who Jesus is, you may
have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. I don't know what your tribulation
is, all I know is that God has promised it. You've either just
come out of some tribulation, you're going to be in some tribulation
or trial, and you'll be going into one. You always will. Jesus promised it. But he says,
take heart, the same word, take heart, be courageous, face these
things acknowledging that they come from God and God sovereignly
rules them for your good purposes. He says, take heart, I have overcome
the world. And in this particular event,
the Lord Jesus calms the wind and the waves without a word,
but just by His will. But in this particular instance,
what needs calming more than anything else is the hearts of
the apostles. To be in a place where they were
is to be distressed. And so he is the God who is powerful. He got into the boat and the
wind stopped and they were utterly astonished. The message, of course,
is that when the Lord Jesus is manifestly present, there is
peace. I trust you've experienced it.
It's something that Christians need to experience again and
again. To be with Jesus is to have peace. To be with Jesus
as he speaks to you through his word is to have his peace. And he says it's a peace that
passes understanding. What on earth from a human point
of view could you understand out of this story? What could
you understand? Just like the apostles, you'll
be perplexed and terrified unless we actually see things through
spiritual eyes. Here there is peace. And He comes, the Lord Jesus
comes to His people through His Word. And He often comes after
a night of toil. He comes in supernatural ways. He comes in unexpected, unexplained
ways. And He comes, especially to His
people, when their need is desperate. And He comes and through His
Word, He brings peace. And He brings peace to people,
the next verse says, who had hearts that were hardened. So often, We need to grieve. Always we need to grieve over
the sense in which our hearts, my heart, is hardened. It's hardened so often against
the sovereignty of God. It's hardened so often against
His providential care of us. How often do we resort to our
human wisdom and our human reason and our human power? And how
often do we not see God and seek God in absolutely every event? Romans 8.28 means all things. Every little tiny thing that
ever happens in our lives is an event for which we can say
Jesus. And when we go and seek understanding
from the events of our lives and seek them in light of who
the Lord Jesus is, as the sovereign God of promise, as the God who
is present everywhere, as the God who sees, as the God who
comes, the God who is omniscient, He knows all things, He's omnipresent,
He is everywhere. Is the Lord Jesus in heaven at
the moment? The Lord Jesus is in heaven right now. Is the Lord
Jesus here? He's promised that He's here.
Can He be in both places at once? Well, if I'm a scientist, I say
absolutely impossible. If I'm a Christian, I say, He
is sovereignly in heaven, reigning over this universe from a throne.
He is sovereignly in heaven right at this very moment, praying
and interceding on behalf of all of His people before the
throne of God. Continually before that throne
is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, continually saying
to all creation, These, these my bride, these the members of
my body are wholly spotless and blameless. He is a wounded Saviour
in heaven, wounded in his body as a reminder that it is done. But He is also a God who knows
what's best for His people. He will take us away from things
which our flesh wants. He will take away from us the
things that He knows are not good for us. just like he took
these apostles away and took them through trials. There are
no trials that ever come into our lives that aren't God's trials. There are no trials, no troubles
that ever come into our lives for which God does not have a
purpose. On the back of your outline is
a wonderful poem of John Newton's. who was a man who knew the highs
and the lows of being one of God's children. And it's a well-known
poem. I ask the Lord that I might grow
in faith and love and every grace, might more of His salvation know
and seek more earnestly His face. Twas He who taught me thus to
pray, and He, I trust, has answered prayer. But it has been in such
a way as almost drove me to despair. I hoped that in some favoured
hour at once he'd answer my request, and by his love's constraining
power subdue my sins and give me rest. Instead of this he made
me feel the hidden evils of my heart, and let the angry powers
of hell assault my soul in every part. Yea, more with his own
hand he seemed intent to aggravate my woe, Crossed all my fair designs
I schemed, Blasted my gourds, and laid me low. Lord, why is
this, I trembling cried, Wilt thou pursue thy worm to death? Tis in this way the Lord replied,
I answer prayer for grace and faith. These inward trials I
employ from self and pride to set thee free and break thy schemes
of earthly joy that thou mayst find thy all in me. Just like these apostles, we
will go through trials which will rob us of the things that
we find comfort for in this world. And it's an act of grace and
mercy and love and compassion from God to take away from us
the things that we depend upon, that we might just depend upon
Him. And this story has a beautiful
conclusion. because he is the God who takes
his own to a safe and beautiful place where compassion abounds. John's Gospel has a remarkable
statement in it where it says that when Jesus got into this
boat they immediately were at the other shore. It's one of
the few places in the New Testament where we have a clear description
of the fact that God is ever present everywhere and the Lord
Jesus as God can be ever present. So immediately they moved. They
were in the middle of the sea and they were immediately on
the land. They no longer had to toil to
go across there. And they land in this place called
Gennesaret in verse 53. and they moored to the shore.
And Gennesaret was considered the most beautiful garden-like
place in all of Israel. It was called the Garden of the
Whole Land, and it had beautifully fertile soil, and it was a place
of great beauty. And so immediately these people
were transferred from the middle of this raging sea where they
were toiling in their human efforts to achieve nothing, and they
were transferred by the Lord Jesus into this place of beauty. And as we saw earlier in Psalm
16, the boundary lines, the lines have fallen for me in pleasant
places. Indeed, my heritage is beautiful
to me. And the chapter finishes with
the most wonderful descriptions of the deep, deep compassion
the Lord Jesus had for nation Israel, for these people. The people recognized Him and
He came and they ran and they came to Him. And wherever He
went, this wonderful picture at the finish of this ministry
in Galilee is this wonderful picture of the Lord Jesus going
about and with great compassion, healing and caring for people. wherever he was, wonderful things
were happening. And we know sadly, from the rest
of the scriptures, that these towns which had received so much,
sadly, so many of these people lived and remained with hardened
hearts. God's kingdom is a spiritual
kingdom. God's kingdom is advanced by
spiritual means. God's kingdom can only be understand
with spiritual eyes. But also we need to have our
eyes attuned to see that our God is a God of deep and great
compassion. He's a God of deep and great
compassion and He has great power to do all of these things. and
He's a God who has great, great purposes. And He'll bring His
chosen ones into a safe and beautiful place where compassion abounds,
where the trials and struggles of this world are no more. If only for the things of this
world we have hope, we are to be of all men most pitied. Our
hope lies beyond the shores of this land. Our hope resides in
heaven and one day very soon our Saviour will come from there
and He'll take us into a beautiful and bountiful land and we will
see then more clearly than we've ever seen before that every little
tiny thing and every little tiny trial has just been another example
of His deep, deep love for His people, His deep, deep sovereign
love.