A Fishy Sermon

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So the central question of the gospel according to Matthew, the central question running from the front cover to the back cover of this gospel is, who is this?

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Who is this? Who is this man, this Nazarene? Who's this one who says he is the

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Messiah? And so Matthew is, from the beginning to the end, he's introducing that question and he's answering it throughout.

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The question is asked a number of times and it's answered a number of times. Matthew does his job under divine inspiration of unpacking just exactly who

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Jesus is. It's not random, it's very focused. The Spirit of God guided him along to write what he wrote down.

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That's what Peter says, holy men of God spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. This is divinely inspired.

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God's writing the story but Matthew is answering the central question, who is this?

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And I want to say that is the most important question and your answer to it, vitally important in terms of your purpose, your future, your eternal life or lack of eternal life.

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Who is Jesus? John asked the question in Matthew chapter 11.

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You'll remember he's in chains now and John sends disciples to Jesus to ask

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Jesus, are you the one that we've been expecting? Are we to expect another?

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And it's really amazing how Jesus answers him. He doesn't do what he can do, should do, could do as God in the flesh and just give the direct answer and say the answer is yes,

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I'm the Messiah. John, I'm the one you've been expecting, there's nothing else as you've thought,

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I am the one. He actually tells John to look at what's happening, all the expectations of the

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Messiah and what he would do to heal the sick, give sight to blind people, all that they expected to happen in the world, the realities that they expected to see because of Mashiach entering into the world to bring redemption, to restore creation.

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Jesus reminds John all of your expectations from Isaiah are happening all around us and so there's the confirmation.

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But John did ask the question, who is this? Who is he? Who's Jesus? The disciples asked the question and really answer it in this very text.

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You heard it already in Matthew 14 .33, they say, and those in the boat worshipped him saying what?

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Truly, you are the Son of God. They knew who he was immediately.

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They saw him controlling the elements themselves. It's rather convincing to see a man walking a long distance over a roaring and raging sea.

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That'll convince you. It's even more convincing when Peter says, if it's really you, let me come out to meet you.

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And Jesus says, immediately responding to his act of faith, his desire to trust Jesus, Jesus says, come, come on out.

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And Peter steps out and they watch Jesus control the elements and also Jesus give power to Peter to walk on that water.

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But notice their response, Matthew's answering the question, who is this? Who is he?

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Who's Jesus? And they worshipped him and they said, truly, you're the Son of God. The crowds in Matthew 21 verse six, the crowds ask the question again.

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Matthew's constantly bringing you back to it. Who is this? Matthew 21 verse six.

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This of course is the scene where Jesus draws near to Jerusalem, comes to Bethpage and to the

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Mount of Olives. Then he sends his disciples out to go get the donkey. Now he goes and fulfills the word spoken by the prophets.

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And it says in verse six, the disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks and he sat on them.

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Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.

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And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, Hosanna to the

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Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. And when he entered

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Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up saying, who is this?

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There's that question. Who is this? Now of course the council challenges on that question as well.

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As you go further into Matthew, you see Matthew bring it up again. Who is it? Matthew 26 verse 59.

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This of course is Jesus now brought before Caiaphas and the council. And in verse 59 it says, now the chief priest and the council were seeking false testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death.

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But they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. At last two men, two came forward and said, this man said,

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I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three days. And the high priest stood up and said, have you no answer to make?

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What is it that these men testify against you? But Jesus remained silent. And the high priest said to him,

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I adjure you by the living God. Tell us if you're the Christ, the Son of God. There it is again.

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The crowds, John, the disciples, the council, Caiaphas.

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And then of course it's answered premierly at the end of Matthew. If you look at Matthew chapter 27 verse 54, you have that amazing scene where Jesus has now been murdered on the cross before all these bystanders.

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Everyone's seen this now. And you of course have this centurion there. And in verse 54 of chapter 27 it says, when the centurion and those who were with them keeping watch over Jesus saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, truly this was the

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Son of God. You see, that's a central question. In Matthew, and it's a central question that we have to answer of course ourselves, will we respond to Jesus, his life and ministry, his call to come to him in faith in the way that the disciples did when they saw this roaring and raging sea and the

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Son of God, the Lord of glory walking on the waters and then causing the waters to go still.

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Again, he calms the sea. They knew who he was because they know their Old Testament. It is Yahweh.

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It is the only one and true and living God that can calm the seas. And that's what they saw in Jesus.

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So they worshiped him and they say, truly this is the Son of God. The central question is who is this?

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Who is Jesus? Now of course we know his identity from the Old Testament. These are important things to gather.

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Very important. Listen, you can read the New Testament. People do. And they see the narrative and what

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Jesus accomplishes. They see, of course, giving sight to blind people and raising a little girl from the dead, raising

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Lazarus from the dead, giving people their hearing back, causing somebody who had not been able to walk since birth to get on their legs again and to start walking.

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They see Jesus walking on the water. And it's possible for people to read that narrative and actually say, hmm, in a sort of suspicious way, well maybe he's just a magician.

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Maybe he's just some sort of a trickster, right? Maybe this is all just some sort of an illusion.

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But you see, if you read Matthew with biblical eyes, you can see that Matthew is not merely giving you these miraculous events as something merely to impress you, to say, oh look at the amazing feats that Jesus can accomplish.

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That's not Matthew's purpose. Every miracle that we see in the New Testament from Jesus is not about the miracle.

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Jesus healed sick people. And brothers and sisters, listen, they got sick again. Jesus healed people and brought them from death to life.

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And brothers and sisters, they died again. Lazarus was raised from the dead, yes, but he died again.

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It was a temporary solution. It was not meant to be the main story. You see, the main story is really something that is rather more impressive and it rests underneath all those signs, which is really what they are.

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It's pointing to a greater reality. And what's the greater reality? Is that Jesus heals us of our diseases.

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The greatest disease, our sin before God, our broken condition before God, he heals our diseases.

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And when Jesus gives sight to blind people, why? Is it just for a feat? Is it just sort of for maybe the first century version of a

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David Blaine episode? Is it just another Criss Angel, sort of a magician of some sort?

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No, the sign points to the greater reality. The sick got sick again.

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They're raised, died again. And when Jesus does these things, like give sight to blind people, it's because he's the one that causes you to see.

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He's the one that causes you to hear. He's the one that has the power to raise us from our greatest enemy, which is death.

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It's the greatest enemy we all face that will meet every one of us. And Jesus displays in his own resurrection of himself that he has power over death in himself and in you.

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That's the greater story, the miracles of Jesus in this text. I'm talking about Matthew 14.

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They show us who he is. Who is this? It's Yahweh among us.

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Because, brothers and sisters, only Yahweh is the one who provides. Because, brothers and sisters, only

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Yahweh is the one who controls the elements themselves. He controls his own creation because he's the creator of it.

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Only Yahweh is the one who can be depended on to feed us and to satisfy our needs. Only Yahweh is the one who causes the storm to be stilled.

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That's the truth. And Matthew is telling you a bigger story. He's not merely telling you, look at these amazing feats of the

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Messiah. He's showing you who Jesus truly is. He is God with us. And he even throws that little amazing package in there.

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Here's the disciples recognizing, who is this? It's the Son of God. And what's their response?

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It's the response that you and I ought to have with Jesus our entire lives. It's to fall down and worship him and to praise him and to recognize who he is and to actually now walk, not with little faith, but with big faith, which is what

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Jesus is calling us to. Trust. But what is his identity? A couple things.

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Number one, go to the Old Testament and you'll see that the identity of the Messiah isn't something that's confusing.

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It's awesome. It's awesome how explicit God is before Jesus enters the world and takes on flesh in this beautiful advent.

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God's showing up in time and condescending. The Old Testament says there is only one

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God in Isaiah 9, 6 through 7. Who's Messiah? The eternal

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God, the Father of Eternity, El Gibor, the mighty God. That's who the Messiah is.

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Micah 5, 2. Where's the Messiah going to come from? From Bethlehem. And his goings forth are from old, yea, even from everlasting.

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Who's coming to Bethlehem? Yahweh's coming to Bethlehem. And of course, we know in the

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New Testament, what does Jesus do? It's stuff that we miss. People say, by the way, what does everyone attack with Jesus?

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What can you be assured of that a cultist will always go after?

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They always go after the deity of Jesus and justification through faith alone and Christ alone.

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That's what the cults will always go after. They want to distort the message of Jesus by distorting his person.

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Why? Because there's only one way to salvation. And if someone can take the name of Jesus and give you a different Jesus, now they've led you on a path where there is no salvation.

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So they distort that about Jesus. But they'll actually look at the text of the Bible and they'll say something that's maddening, not only with the explicit statements about who

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Jesus is, Yahweh, but they'll say, how can you believe that Jesus is God?

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Well, I'd say the fact that he forgives sin, he's taking the prerogative of God.

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By the way, they knew that when Jesus would say, your sins are forgiven. What was the Jewish response to Jesus saying your sins are forgiven?

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What was the response? Who can forgive sins but God alone?

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By the way, absolutely appropriate response. If I said to you, if you said,

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Pastor Jeff, I've sinned and I said, I forgive you. It's time to find a new church, guys.

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Right? Because how dare you say on your own authority that your sins are forgiven you unless you are

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God? Their response was absolutely appropriate. Yes, who can forgive sins but God alone?

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But that should have been the signs of them of exactly who is standing before them. Who is this?

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Yahweh. Jesus says, your sins are forgiven you. Jesus is worshiped. Here in another text in the book of Revelation, they fall down and they worship

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Jesus. Remember when the angel comes to John in the book of Revelation? What's John's response when he's confronted with this angelic creation that is just an amazing thing to behold?

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He falls down to worship the angel. And what's the angel do? He freaks out.

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He's like, get up. I'm a servant like you. Worship God. And in the

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New Testament, you have people worshiping Jesus, falling down to worship

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Jesus. Before the throne of God in the book of Revelation, read Revelation 4 and 5, chapters 4 and 5, this throne room scene where they're worshiping the lamb of God, falling down and worshiping him in awe of his majesty, his might.

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Who is it? Yahweh. He's worshiped. Thomas, doubting Thomas. I'm not going to believe unless I put my hand into his side.

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And then Jesus shows up. Here, handle me and see,

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Jesus says. A spirit does not have flesh and bone as you see me have. And then what's Thomas's response?

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The Lord of me and the God of me. And he worships

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Jesus. He's worshiped. He's called God. Throughout the New Testament, he's called

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God. He's called the mighty God. He's called our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

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Jesus says before Abraham was, ego eimi, I am. He takes the name of God from the

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Old Testament, I am, and he applies it to himself. And they knew exactly what he was saying.

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There's no confusion because it says they picked up stones to do what? To stone him.

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For what? John 10. Many good works have I shown you from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?

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And they said, what? For thy good works we stone thee not, but for blasphemy, and that you being a man make yourself

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God. They knew what he was saying. Jesus displays his identity that he's

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Yahweh among us in that he is without sin. What's John the Baptist's first claim about Jesus in his public ministry?

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What's he say about Jesus? He says, behold, what? The Lamb of God.

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Who does what? Who takes away the sins of the world. The Lamb of God had to be without spot.

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It had to be without blemish. It was innocent. Don't forget, don't ever forget, brothers and sisters, that these disciples, this ragtag bunch of believers, these fallible, very broken human beings that are not perfect, they're just like you, they went to their deaths to testify that this is

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Jesus, the righteous one, the blameless one. Peter, in this story, who walks the waters with Jesus and then loses his sight, he looks at his circumstances and starts to drown and Jesus rescues him.

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Don't forget that that's the same Peter who blows it so many times in his ministry after Jesus dies and rises again, but he goes to his death to say what about this

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Messiah, that he's the righteous one, that he's the Savior, that he's the one that's worthy to take away my sins.

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He's without sin. Jesus can do something that you and I can't do. He says before his enemies, his family and his friends, he says, which of you accuses me of sin?

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And no one can say anything. Next, Jesus searches the heart. Only Yahweh can search the heart.

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You notice in the New Testament, the Gospels, it'll say Jesus knowing their thoughts. He knew their thoughts.

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Only God can do that. It says that he is the God who provides here in this text, Matthew 14, 13 through 21, where Jesus feeds.

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By the way, it's not appropriate for it to say Jesus feeds the 5 ,000. Anybody have that in their text where it says above it, a little title that says

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Jesus feeds the 5 ,000? It really isn't accurate. This is how they counted.

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In this day, they counted by the men and it wasn't like a disk to the women. It's just how they counted because the family was collected under sort of ahead of the home and so they counted the men as a census.

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And the word here, the 5 ,000 men, is explicit in the Greek that it is men.

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So the feeding of the 5 ,000, it's actually probably more like 20 ,000. 20 ,000.

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But in this text, he shows that he's the God who provides. He satisfies their needs. That where's that come from?

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Well, God's name, Jehovah Jireh. Jehovah Jireh. There's some good songs,

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Jehovah Jireh. It means the Lord provides. And where's that come from?

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It comes from Genesis 22, 12 through 24. It's where Abraham is on the mountain, right? Take Isaac, your son, your only son, the son of your love, go to this place to offer him as a sacrifice.

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And then what happens? He gets there, the angel of the Lord stops him and says, you haven't withheld your only son from me.

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And then he calls the place what? The Lord provides. The Lord will provide it.

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Jehovah Jireh. And so they understood that Yahweh is the one who provides to satisfy their needs.

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And in this text, you see Jesus is satisfying their needs. He is doing it.

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He is the one who's providing it. Next, we know that Yahweh calms the sea.

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I want you to see this text, maybe even write it into your Bibles. Go to Psalm 107 29, because it is significant.

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It matters to Matthew. It ought to matter to us. It's not by accident that we have these instances in the gospels where we see the sea, the storm being calmed.

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Psalm 107 29. Beautiful text. Start at verse 28.

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It says, then they cried to the Lord in their trouble. That's they cried to Yahweh in their trouble and he delivered them from their distress.

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He made the storm be still and the waves of the sea were hushed.

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Amazing. Yahweh. Yahweh is the one who calms the sea and the storm.

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And here's Jesus being identified by Matthew. Really watch overtly.

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He's the one that controls the elements. He's the one that calms the sea. So who is he?

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Who is this? It's Yahweh among us. He heals our diseases. You're in Psalms now.

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Now go to Psalm 103. Psalm 103 verse 3. The identity.

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Who is this? Psalm 103 verse 3. It says, well let's start at the top.

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It's only three verses in. Bless the Lord oh my soul and all that is within me.

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Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord oh my soul and forget not all his benefits.

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Who forgives all your iniquity. Who heals all your diseases.

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Matthew is not being subtle with the identity of the Messiah. He's asking the question over and over and over again and he's answering it over and over and over again.

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Who is this? It's Yahweh among us. Who is this? It's the Son of God in glory.

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Now let's go to the text. Now that you can see the background underneath Matthew and what he's doing and displaying this in the narrative of Jesus's life and ministry.

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In verses 13 through 14. Matthew 14. 13 through 14. Now when

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Jesus heard this, what about John the Baptist? He withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself.

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But when the crowds heard it they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore he saw a great crowd and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

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Notice that Jesus withdraws to go to a desolate place.

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Now the text doesn't tell you what Jesus was thinking and what specific purpose he had in going to a desolate place.

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But what we do know about the life of Jesus is that what God intends for us all to be,

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Jesus is. And in this instance Jesus is burdened by something.

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And so he goes to a desolate place to do what? To commune with the Father. To spend time with the

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Father. To worship God. He finds time to be isolated. And so he goes off to a desolate place to be isolated away from people.

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And what's amazing is that if you if you look at a map of the Sea of Galilee, if you look at the sea you can see it actually is huge.

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They depend upon it to feed their crops and to make waterways to make sure that they can actually eat.

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They use this to to fish out of. And the danger of this sea is that it can actually have these raging storms that to this day are very dangerous and they'll kill you.

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But it's amazing as as you look at the surrounding area where Jesus was, they would have had to have walked a pretty great distance to get to Jesus.

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He wants to be alone. Now I suspect with the death of John the Baptist it's probably now at this point marking the days now where Jesus knows forerunner, the

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Lord, all of his work, his sacrifice on the cross. He knows as a man the pain he's about to face in the crucifixion and the beating and in taking the wrath of God for the sins of his people.

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And now Jesus goes knowing the timing. These events are now being set into motion.

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John is dead now. He goes to be alone and to spend time with God.

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But now all of a sudden these crowds are just coming to Jesus and interrupting his time with God.

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How many of you guys have been in a place where you just want to focus on yourself, right?

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You just want to focus on yourself and your relationship with God. You just want intimacy with God and then along comes everybody with their problems, right?

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Along comes everybody with their problems. Everybody else who has needs and all of us in our sinful condition act like we have higher standards than God himself, right?

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So I'm most important in this moment. My time with God is most important in this moment. It's my plight.

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It's my struggles. It's my broken condition. You know, why doesn't someone focus on me right now?

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Why can't I be alone right now? Here comes somebody asking for compassion and love and concern and care.

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And what's our first sinful response? It's to get agitated. It's to get upset with them, right?

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And here's Jesus now facing this horrific thing ahead of him, the cross, bearing our burdens and our guilt.

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All this stuff is set into motion. He goes to be alone with the Father and now these crowds come from a long distance on foot to get to meet with Jesus.

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And what's it say his response is? He's not burdened. That's not the kind of God he is.

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And here's the problem, watch. This is a problem with us. When we struggle with depression and loneliness and hurt and pain, it's not as though God hasn't told us who he is.

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It's just that we don't believe him. It's that we erect for ourselves an idol, a

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God who is far off in the distance, who has no concern for us. He doesn't care.

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He doesn't really want to commune with us. He's burdened by us. And then here you have this identity of Jesus.

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Who is it? He's the compassionate God because when they come from a long distance, Jesus' response is not to be burdened.

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It's to immediately have compassion. He loves them. When they come to him because they're sick and they're hurt and they're broken, his response is compassion, not burden.

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And it says that when they come, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

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Jesus is the God who is full of compassion and sympathy and love, and his response is to leap with joy to satisfy the needs of his people.

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He, watch, he sees a need, sickness, disease.

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He sees the need and then he meets it. That's the God that we have.

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He sees the need and he meets the need. And these, again, these signs, these miracles, they're signs to the greater reality.

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Jesus forgives us all our iniquities, our diseases. Now read again, verses 15 through 17.

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It says, now when it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, this is a desolate place and the day is now over.

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Send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves. But Jesus said, they need not go away.

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You give them something to eat. They said to him, we have only five loaves here and two fish.

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So watch, it says, they recognize now with all the crowds coming to Jesus, his compassion, he is healing everybody of their sicknesses.

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Now they realize everybody's hungry and we don't have the means to provide for these people.

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So the disciples, watch, here's them, here's us, this is us. The disciples see the need, the people are hungry.

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And their response is what? Send them away so they can feed themselves. Send them away so they can take care of themselves.

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They just don't get it yet, do they? The disciples just do not understand.

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The question for Matthew is, who is this? And they, to this point, still don't get it. They're standing with God himself in the flesh, the one who provides,

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Jehovah Jireh, and they say, they're hungry, send them away to the village. Why?

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It's a desolate place. Now there's no reason to ultimately read into this that they're like in the desert.

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They're just in a place where there's no access to food. And don't forget, this is a time that we just don't get.

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We don't understand it. Why? Because we don't have this problem with food. Not in Tempe, Arizona, not in the

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Valley of the Sun. We don't have this problem. For them, providing for their families, moms providing for their children and their husbands, was an all -day grueling process.

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You had to be able to catch your food, you had to be able to make your food. From morning till evening, it was preparation, getting ready.

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Why? There's no refrigeration, there's no storage. How do you preserve things in that day?

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Well, you salt it, right? That's how you preserve it. There's no real way to do it, so it's an all -day process.

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If you're going to make bread, you better have some yeast, you better be having the starter going, you better have this thing working already.

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You're trying to find food, make food, and get food. Now watch, for us, it's so easy.

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Are you hungry, guys? What do we do? There's a McDonald's on the corner, on the corner.

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I'll get you two hamburgers, large fry, and a coke for four bucks, right?

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And I don't have to do nothing, nothing but eat it, right? It's so easy.

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We don't understand this plight. They're in a situation, watch, where it's a desolate area, there's no food that's easy to access and prepare.

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You've got like 20 ,000 people around you. The disciples see the need, and they say, Jesus, send them away.

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It's a desolate area. It's hard work for food. Even if it was right there on the ground, how are you going to prepare it for 20 ,000 people?

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We have a hard enough time at Baptist Potlucks. But Jesus, He wants to meet their need.

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You notice the disciples' response is to see the need and send them away. Jesus sees the need, and He wants to meet the need.

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And in verses 16 through 17, you see that they just don't get it.

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They're standing with God Himself, and they're saying, send them away. They don't get it.

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Now read verses 18 through 19. It says, He said to them, bring them here to me.

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What? The five loaves and the two fish. Now I brought something today as an example to give us a good idea of what we're talking about.

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Now when we talk about what they had in that day for bread, we tend to think of something like this, right?

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That looks like an old -school loaf, right? Round, probably made in a pan.

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Thank you. Okay, probably made in a pan, right? So this is sourdough. So probably close to what they would have used, but the truth is the five loaves and two fish were probably enough to feed like a teenage boy.

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This was not actually a loaf. That's pretty big. The five loaves were more like thin, think of pita bread, right?

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Think of something more like maybe biscuits, right? Or rolls. So five loaves and two fish is not going to feed more than really a teenage boy.

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That's kind of the ration for a teenage boy. And so they have like limited stuff to work with.

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I think it's important I wanted to bring this today because when we think about it merely in our minds, it's hard to imagine the condition.

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And yeah, I did get a fish. It was right. Who likes fish?

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So when you think about the way the world works, and you think about something like this, what went into creating something so spectacular?

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When you think about the eyes, and you think about the digestive system, and you think about all the stuff that goes into making a fish, right?

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That God gives a specific genetic code that's the blueprint for something, right?

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It's the blueprint that tells matter and the world itself how to form something and create this amazing thing that swims through the water, that has an amazing identity all on its own.

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And they've got two of these, right? What did it take to get this fish to this place?

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Well, it took a lot of work in terms of DNA and proteins being put together and forming a certain way to build, to have building blocks to create the fish.

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And here's one fish. They've got two. And Jesus has now very limited resources to work with.

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We have five loaves. We have two fish.

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And the amazing thing is they still don't get it. They don't understand who they're talking to.

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Who is this? Jesus says, what? He makes them sit down and rest.

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In verse 18, he says, bring them here to me. Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass and taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing.

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Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples and the disciples gave them to the crowd.

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So watch, Jesus is the center of it all. He's the provider. He's taking this material, these fish, these loaves.

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He is the one distributing. It comes from him. He's the provider. He gives it to his disciples to give to the people of God and they're eating and they're satisfied.

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But you note, Jesus saw a need. He wants to provide for the need. And what's he do?

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First thing, they're standing up. Disciples say, well, they're already on their feet now.

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Send them away to go get something to eat. Jesus says, what? No, no. No, no. Have them sit down.

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So the first thing God does when he sees our need is he wants us to sit down and rest.

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He could have just said, well, make them go away. Obviously, they're hungry. We have only these five loaves and two fish.

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But Jesus' first thing says, sit down. Taking a seated position is really a humble position.

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It's a position of trust. And in this day, it's a position of humility and fellowship, communion.

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And Jesus says, sit down and rest. I'll provide. He looks above his circumstances.

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You notice that? Do you ever see that? It's just one of those things. Like, you know, it's in the Bible. We see it a lot.

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We don't read a lot into it, but we should because it says a lot. Remember in John 11, the raising of Lazarus.

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What's everybody doing? Jesus specifically waits a long time to do what?

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To display the glory of God. Lazarus is sick and he's dead. Now he's been dead for a while.

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So dead that when he tells them to roll the stone away, they're worried about how much it's going to stink up the neighborhood.

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And so that's how dead Lazarus is. And when he gets there, they're weeping, they're wailing, they're broken.

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They're saying, Jesus, if you'd have been here, my brother wouldn't have died. And Jesus says, what?

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I am the resurrection and the life. And then what? Jesus goes to the tomb. And when he calls into the tomb, what's the very first thing

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Jesus does? Is that all of this circumstance is broken. All of it is evil.

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All of it is disharmonious and fallen and dark. And everybody's hurting inside, broken.

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And what's Jesus do? He lifts up his eyes. It's as though Jesus, when confronted with circumstances that are horrific and broken and dark, is that Jesus lifts his eyes always above his circumstances, not paying attention to the circumstances, to the death, to the hunger, to the sickness and the disease.

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Jesus always lifts his eyes above his circumstances and he looks to heaven.

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And so Jesus now has the people of God sit down. He sees their need. He wants to provide for it.

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He lifts his eyes above the circumstances. He breaks the fish and the loaves.

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He distributes to the people of God. And it's this amazing miracle. Close to 20 ,000 people probably are eating off of five rolls and some fish.

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And it just keeps happening and multiplying and happening and multiplying. It's all coming from Jesus.

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And he's feeding the people of God. And the amazing thing is, and I want you to see the text, here's the result of Jesus seeing the need and providing for it.

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It says in verse 20, and they all ate and were satisfied. That's what Jesus does.

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That's what Jesus does. He satisfies all of your needs.

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Watch. It's easy enough in this day to say, here's some food and they could have still been hungry because maybe there's not a lot of resources, not a lot to eat.

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Maybe they have a big family and what they're used to is eating some food and sort of it just kind of hitting the spot.

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You see, people in this day knew something that we don't really know today, admit it. Maybe you've had circumstances in your life where you did go hungry.

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Maybe you know what it's like to go to bed with a hunger that hurts.

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Maybe you know what it's like to actually wake up with hunger. They would have known. They would have had times where they actually understood hunger pains.

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My kids all the time, they'll have breakfast, lunch, and then dinner. And then it'll be nine o 'clock at night.

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And what comes out of their mouths? It is an evil, despicable thing. What do they say after three meals a day and snacks?

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What do they say? Dad. What? I'm starving. Right? You lie.

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You are not starving. You have no idea what starving is, right? They knew what starving was.

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And the beautiful part of this story that shows exactly who Jesus is, is it says that he saw the need, he wanted to satisfy it, and then what happens is they sit down, they rest, and what does

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God do? He satisfies them. Their bellies are full.

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They're satisfied. They're in need of nothing.

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In that moment, Jesus is the centerpiece of their provision, all that they have to trust in.

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He shows them who he is. He provides for their needs with literally this abysmal small bit of food, and he feeds 20 ,000, and then he feeds them, and they sit, and they're satisfied.

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They are resting. They are comforted with the God of compassion, who loves them and wants to satisfy their needs.

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Now, the remaining portion, we do have to point it out. I want you to see it, because it's not an accident. It is not an accident.

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It says, after it says they were satisfied, and they took up 12 baskets, verse 20, full of the broken pieces left over, and those who ate were about 5 ,000 men, besides women and children.

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So again, how they did censuses this day, how they counted by the head of the household, the man, and of course, you've got the mother, the wife, and then the children, so it's probably close to around 20 ,000 people, but when they're all satisfied, they are satisfied over and above their needs.

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That's what you have to see. As Jesus leaps at your need, He says, rest in me.

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I am the God of compassion. He feeds you. You're full, and then you realize that there's an overabundance to care for every need that you have, and then

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Jesus has them collect all the pieces, and what do you have? You have 12 baskets full.

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A number is not an accident. You have what? The 12 tribes of Israel. You've got the 12 disciples, and what

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Jesus is saying here and what's left over is that He satisfies Israel's needs abundantly.

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God takes care of Israel's needs abundantly. He hasn't forgotten Israel. He's still the

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God who provides for Israel, the 12 tribes. Now, the next portion here,

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I'm really going to go rather quickly through this, I think, to read. I want you to see the text for what it is.

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Immediately, He made the disciples get into the boat, go before Him to the other side while He dismissed the crowds, and after He had dismissed the crowds,

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He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray, so He directs the disciples. Watch. He says, you guys go on ahead.

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Get on the boat. You guys go on ahead, and then He dismisses the crowds, and He goes off now to get that time alone.

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First, He considers others. First, it's their needs, and now He goes to be alone to fellowship with the

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Father. He says, when evening came, He was there alone, but the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, so the wind was against them.

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Now, have you ever seen some of these modern magicians with all of the technical stuff and the machinery and the contraptions walk on water?

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You ever seen that? Like, if you go on the internet, you'll see Chris Angel at like a resort in Las Vegas, and people are...

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it's a setup. Like, these are all actors because they're doing things in the midst of it. Things in the midst of it, you're like, oh, you're being paid for that, and it's been admitted that he's paid actors to do this stuff, but he walks across a pool, right, in Las Vegas with actors who are like, you know, swimming right underneath where he's at, but the whole point is, is he's a magician.

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It's trickery. It's a setup. They're using devices. He's walking across a pool, but it's obvious that this is just some sort of a trick.

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Now, the amazing thing about Jesus here in the first century is this boat is a long way off in the middle of a raging storm.

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There's no way to set this up. No way. And Jesus, a long distance off, walks to them across these waves that are terrifying, get it, fishermen.

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They've done the dance. They know the story. They know how this works, and they are freaking out, and Jesus walks out to them, and they see him.

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In the fourth watch, it's late of the night, he came to them walking on the sea, but when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified and said, it's a ghost, and they cried out in fear.

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We freak out a lot, don't we, right? What do kids do? Kids think there's a what under their bed?

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Monster under their bed, right, or something's in the closet, right? My daughter was telling me about how she saw a commercial came across her feed for the movie

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It, and she ended up like staying up all night off of a commercial for the movie

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It, staying up all night, freaked out, right, that there's this clown, right, hiding in her bathroom.

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And the funny thing is, is for some reason at like five in the morning, my wife went like across the house, and I had to get something out of her bathroom, so she opened her door, but didn't walk in, just opened the door, and then like walked away.

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So Imogen's all freaked out over the clown. All of a sudden, the door opens. It's a beautiful moment, but we're so freaked out, right?

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We're so superstitious, and we're so freaked out, and in this moment now, right, they know who Jesus is. Who do they think's walking on the water, right?

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Who do they think's walking on the water? And they see him. It's a ghost, and they're freaking out. And it says they cried out in fear.

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Watch. But as soon as they cry out in fear, don't miss it, as soon as their response is fear, once again, the

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God of compassion, the God who sees their needs and wants to provide for their needs, what do you do? It says as soon as they cry out in fear, it says, but immediately

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Jesus spoke to them saying, take heart, it's I, do not be afraid.

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You see, Jesus' response to our moment of collapse, to our moment of fear and embracing our fear,

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Jesus' response, watch, is to immediately, immediately respond to take care of our needs.

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Once again, they cry out, and Jesus says, take heart, do not be afraid, and Peter's response,

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I love it, Peter answered him, Lord, if it's you, command me to come to you on the water.

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He knows who Jesus is now. He knows what Jesus can do, and so what's he doing?

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If it's you, then tell me to come out to you on the water. By the way, how awesome is that? Peter wants to participate a little bit, right?

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See, Jesus walking in the water, he's like, I want to do that. So Jesus, if it's you, let me also walk in the water.

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How many of you guys would think, like, be like I'll take that opportunity, right? Go down like that, and so what's

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Peter do? He says, I want to do it. He wants to exercise faith. If it's you, Jesus, I want to trust you to have me come out to you, and don't you love, once again,

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Jesus' openness to his people to exercise faith and trust? He doesn't snub them. He doesn't push him back.

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He doesn't do anything but say, come on. Peter says, I want to follow you. Let me walk in the water with you, and then

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Peter, Jesus says, come. That's his response. He invites us to trust him.

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He is eager for us to trust him. So Jesus says, come. So Peter gets out of the boat, walked on the water, and came to Jesus.

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That must have been the most amazing experience of his life. The storm is raging.

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The sea is raging. The wind is blowing, and now he is standing in the middle of the sea, looking at Jesus.

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But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried out.

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Now notice, back to what I said a moment ago, do you notice in the gospels when Jesus is confronted with death, when he's confronted with sickness and disease, when he's confronted with brokenness and evil,

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Jesus lifts his eyes above his circumstances. He pays them no mind.

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He just looks to the Father above his circumstances. He focuses his attention and trust on the

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Father. He watches for the Father's blessing. He commits himself to trust the

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Lord, and in Peter's circumstance here, he walks out on the water. Jesus said, come out.

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Come out to me. Exercise your faith. Come. Come out. Walk with me on these waters. Peter walks out, and what's the first thing he does?

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It's what all of us do. All of our circumstances, right? We start looking at our circumstances. We take our eyes off of heaven.

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We start looking at our circumstances, looking at the wind and the waves and all that's broken.

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That's our first thing we do. Like, I want to trust God. I know who he is, but my bank account.

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I want to trust God. I know who he is, but my job. I want to trust

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God. I know who he is, but my business. I want to trust God. I know who he is, but my children, their disobedience, their brokenness, their rebellion, right?

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I want to trust God. I know who he is, but there's confusion all around me. So what do we do? We take our eyes off of heaven, and we look to our circumstances.

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Peter does that. He's standing there looking at Jesus walking on the water. He takes his eyes off of Jesus, and he looks at his circumstances, and what's the first thing he does?

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He loses sight of what's true, and who's in front of him, and he begins to sink, because now he's focusing only on his circumstances, only on what appears to be true around him, forgetting the

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Lord of truth who's standing right in front of him, and he begins to sink, and I love Jesus' response, because as soon as he begins to sink, he cries out,

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Lord, save me! And what's Jesus' response? Well, it's not what

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I would do, right? Like, we're so proud, haughty.

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Like, what do you want to happen to somebody who doesn't trust you? Like, you've shown yourself maybe as faithful in a relationship.

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You've shown yourself as a person of character, maybe. Maybe you've displayed to somebody that you can be trusted over a long period of time, and then they doubt you, or they question you, and what's the thing that you want?

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Sort of like, it's a vindictive, sinful part of us, right? And the vindictive, sinful part of us says this, we need to learn your lesson, right?

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I'll let you get about here, right? Let me let you gasp for air just a little, just so you can see that you should have trusted me.

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Like, I think that's the vindictive part of all of us, is that if it was us in Jesus' position, we see someone sinking like that because of distrust after all that they've seen you do, and now that they're sinking because they can't get their eyes off their circumstances, and they sing, help, right?

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Help, God, right? Help, save me. Jesus' first response is to do what? Punish them.

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Discipline them. Nope, that's not who he is. Jesus' first response as he says,

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Lord, save me. It says, watch, there it is again. The word is in the text. It says,

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Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, oh, you of little faith, why did you doubt?

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You know, Christians, we struggle sometimes with assurance of salvation, right?

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You ever had the experience? I know that my wife had it growing up, where maybe this is your experience too, where somebody says, hey, if you want to be saved, you just, you pray this prayer, right?

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You have like sort of a track that says, Lord, I know I'm a sinner. I know Jesus died for me.

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I know Jesus rose again. And so, Jesus, I ask you to come into my heart right now. I trust in you. Please save me from my sins, right?

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You ever had the experience where like you've prayed that prayer 51 ,000 times?

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Why? Well, maybe I didn't say it right, right? Maybe I didn't say it needed to be said to be saved.

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So, I'll read this different track to read that prayer, and then I'll really be saved, right? And so, we struggle with assurance of salvation.

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Why? Because, well, that's not how the gospel is preached in the New Testament. There's no magic prayer. There's no specific words. It's repentance and faith.

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It comes from the heart. It's a gift from God. But we struggle with assurance of salvation. Why? Because we think

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God isn't listening, or he's not interested in saving us. Or maybe God is so far away, he's really angry with us, and he doesn't want to reach out in compassion to pull us out of our death.

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But this is who Jesus is. Peter comes out with little faith. It's not that he had no faith.

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Jesus says little faith. He comes out, looks at his circumstances, eyes off of Jesus, sinks.

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He says, Lord, save me. And Jesus immediately reaches and yanks him out of that water.

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That's Jesus' response to you and to me when we cry out to him to save us.

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When we cry out to him for help, he immediately responds. When we say,

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God, I want to exercise trust in you. I want to have faith in you. He says, come. Come out on the water. When we cry out and say,

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God, save me, he responds immediately to save us. The assurance we have of our salvation is not in us and how much faith we have or how we said things a certain way.

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The assurance we have of our salvation is rooted in the character of our

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God. It's who he is. It's not who you are. It's not what you've said.

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It's not what you've accomplished. It's who he is. Lord, save me. And Jesus says, yes, immediately responds to our cries for salvation.

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Now, it says in verse 31, Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him,

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O you of little faith, why did you doubt? And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.

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And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, truly, you are the Son of God. You see, here's what's important to recognize, if I can say one last thing here.

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It's wrong to think that because you're a believer that you're never going to struggle with doubt.

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Because he doesn't say here that Peter had no faith. Jesus doesn't condemn him saying he doesn't believe, right?

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Well, you fell in the water. Why? Because you weren't looking at me. You weren't trusting in me. You looked at the circumstances, right? So you obviously don't believe.

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Jesus says to him, little faith. That's, by the way, his pet name for his people.

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You do know that. It's not something that exists in the New Testament era, outside of the

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New Testament. It's not something we've seen elsewhere. It's something that's unique to Jesus about his disciples.

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He calls them little faiths, right? Little faiths.

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Jesus doesn't condemn him because he has no faith. He says to him, why did you doubt? Little faith.

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What is Jesus calling you to? Big faith. Big trust.

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Trust has an object. Who's the object for Peter as he walks in that water? The object is Jesus, not the waves, not the wind, not the sea, not the darkness, not the fear.

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The object is Jesus. And Jesus says, trust me, and not just a little bit.

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Like it was a little bit of faith for Peter to say, if it's you, I know you can do it. Make me walk in that water with you.

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That was little faith. And then he steps out and he looks at his circumstances, eyes off of Jesus, and he sinks.

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And Jesus says, little faith, why'd you doubt? Who is this?

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It's the Son of God. It's Yahweh among us. Why'd you doubt? Why don't you trust me?

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And as we struggle as believers with confusion, you're not on the sea. You're not with waves in a boat, but you are in circumstances that are beyond your control.

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You're struggling with relational conflict. You're struggling with maybe family members who can't be trusted, family members who want to hurt you.

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Maybe you're struggling with personal relationships in the church, broken relationships. There's a storm going on in your life.

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Maybe you're struggling with sickness and disease and brokenness. Maybe you're struggling with financial collapse and confusion.

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The point is of the story, this is an example of Jesus in his world. He's the one that causes it all to still.

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And while this is all raging around us, we're supposed to recognize the one who is already walking on the water, who controls the elements, who calls us to exercise big trust in him.

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Not, watch, watch, not as an exercise to demonstrate how amazing you are.

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And look how much you've grown. The point of God calling you to big faith in him and trusting in him is to make much of him, not you.

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You see, this story isn't about Peter. The story is about Jesus and that he can be trusted.

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He had the power the whole time. He had the power to calm the storm. And by the way, here's an amazing thing to kick everything off.

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It was Jesus who controlled the storm the entire time. He called that wind and those waves to hit that boat.

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You might say, well, that seems weird. Well, that's your problem. He's the one that's sovereign over it.

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And yes, he directed the storm and the sea to do what it did. He was sovereign over the whole time.

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Why? To make much of himself and to change and sanctify his people.

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And so if you have a storm and wind and rain and seas crashing against your life, you better believe that it's

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Jesus who's sovereign over that whole entire storm. And you better believe that he causes the sea to still when he chooses.

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He says but a word. In the midst of it, if you walk out on those waters with Jesus, he calls you to big faith, to trust in who he is.

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He's the object. Eyes off your circumstances. Lift your eyes above your circumstances to heaven, to the one who actually controls all things.

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He is Jehovah Jireh. He is the Lord who provides. He is the Lord over all of creation.

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He is Yahweh among us. Trust him.