Mark 6:45-52 (“I AM in Plain Sight”)

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day Sermon. We pray that as we declare the

Word of God, that you would be encouraged, strengthened in your faith, and that you would catch a greater vision of who

Christ is. May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word, and may the Lord be with you.

Bringing the word to us this morning, even in his brief interludes. The Lord might be building the preacher up in there a little bit.

I'm very thankful for his continued ministry, thankful to come and visit with you once again.

It is remarkable the way the Lord works in us that it feels almost like kind of coming home in a way, to see many of you that I've seen before.

Just a joy to be with you and to hear that there are many other people, and we know this, that are shining forth the glory and the grace of Jesus Christ.

And so I thank you for welcoming me to your congregation. Now, as I said,

I know some of you, we've talked a little bit before. What you may not know is I'm a pretty big baseball fan.

Anybody thankful that baseball's back after the strike? I am thankful. All right, no applauding, but I also am thankful that baseball is back.

I also am a Red Sox fan. It's a geographical thing, I suppose. A couple of years ago, I got a chance to actually go to Fenway Park and go on the

Fenway Park tour. Has anybody done the Fenway Park tour? It's really neat. I really recommend it. And it's a kind of a guided tour where you walk around the ballpark and the guide tells you all sorts of things about it.

It's kind of like the Freedom Trail with a guide, but more interesting to me. And, you know, it's like $15.

It's actually shockingly inexpensive for Fenway Park. So we're walking through the empty stands.

This is usually while the team is away, and we come around the first base side of the lodge box, and the guide points at the

Green Monster. If you don't know what the Green Monster is, we're in Massachusetts. I might have to take your card away, but...

So he points at the Green Monster, and he points at the scoreboard on the Green Monster, and he says, what do you see? I'm looking at it, and I'm like, well, the

Yankees are ahead by three in the division. I don't really know what he's looking for. How is Tampa Bay doing so well? They spend no money.

What's going on? That's kind of what's going through my head. He says, no, no, no, no, no, no. Look at the white lines on the scoreboard.

Okay, they look like white lines on the scoreboard. He said, look really close. And if you look really close at the white lines on the

Green Monster scoreboard, you will see Morse code. There is Morse code hidden in those lines.

Did I say green lines? I meant white lines. Okay, white lines. And so it turns out that the

Morse code is spelling out the initials of Tom and Gene Yawkey. We know Yawkey Way.

It's not Yawkey Way anymore. Whatever. That whole thing. But they're probably the most famous owners that have ever owned the

Boston Red Sox, and so this is like a nod to them as kind of a tribute to the history of what's happening there.

And if you pay attention, you'll see it. We get to watch Red Sox games this year, so you can take a look. Or you can look at a picture of the

Green Monster. And we see these things all over the place. It's a very popular thing in modern culture to hide things in plain sight.

One thing that I, when I was studying for this, I thought was really interesting, this one I didn't know, is if you look at the Toyota logo, it's got the circle, it's got the two ovals.

It's designed like this so that by some combination of the circle and the ovals, you can make every letter in Toyota.

Kind of cool. I thought it was kind of neat. One that I knew because I used to work for FedEx. If you look at FedEx, there's white space between the

E and the X. It is an arrow always pointing forward. Congratulations, you will never unsee that for the rest of your life.

Baskin -Robbins, who remembers Baskin -Robbins? There's not that many Baskin -Robbins anymore. But built into their

BR is the number 31 for the original 31 flavors from Baskin -Robbins. And one more for you, back to baseball.

I contend the best logo in major leagues is the throwback 1978

Milwaukee Brewers logo where it has the M and the B hidden in the logo. Great logo. Look it up when you get home.

And the early ministry, people are like, oh, the glove with it. That's so cool. The early ministry of Jesus Christ is also filled with these pictures.

As Jesus performed miracle after miracle, the truth of who he was could not be denied.

And we even heard Derek talk about it this morning. For some reason, we just kind of put this stuff away and we think, oh, just one more, just one more.

And we saw that with the Pharisees as we were reading the feeding of the 4 ,000. I was thinking to myself, okay, it was like two chapters ago that he fed the 5 ,000.

Why are you confused that there's no food here? Come on, guys, get with the program. But hindsight is 20 -20, right?

So where we're going to be this morning is actually back in Mark, in Mark chapter 6.

And the last time I was here, I was blessed to bring to you a message about the feeding of the 5 ,000. And today we're going to come to the next passage, which is so well known that even unbelievers who know nothing about the

Bible, they couldn't find it in the Bible if you ask them to point it out, but they reference this. And this is

Mark chapter 6, verses 45 to 52. If you'll turn there, Mark chapter 6, verses 45 to 52.

I'll read that for you and then we're going to break this down. Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd.

And after he had taken leave of them, he went up on the mountain to pray. And when evening came, the boat was out on the sea and he was alone on the land.

And he saw that they were making headway painfully for the wind was against them. And about the fourth watch of the night, he came to them walking on the sea.

He meant to pass by them. But when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and cried out for they all saw him and were terrified.

But immediately he spoke to them and said, take heart. It is I. Do not be afraid.

And he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased and they were utterly astounded for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.

So what's going on here? So we know the Gospel of Mark. We've looked at the Gospel of Mark at the

Shepherd's Church. Here in chapter 6, at the beginning of Mark chapter 6, Jesus sends out his disciples.

This is the expansion of the great Galilean ministry. Before this, Jesus was going about and really,

I mean, he had his disciples with him, but he was pretty much doing it himself. He was pretty much doing everything himself.

But at this point, he sends them out two by two, buddy system, and they did everything that Jesus commanded.

Some scholars say that they may have been out in this area, in the area of Galilee, for up to a year or even 18 months, depending on who you study.

But eventually they all come back to this area. They all come back. They've gone on their mission and they're tired. They're relaxed.

They need to relax. They need to refresh. Who here has been on a company retreat where you need to just get away from work for a little bit?

This is what they needed. So Jesus schedules a getaway. Most likely they're in Capernaum, and so they leave from Capernaum and they get on a boat to leave.

But they're followed, right? At this point, these disciples have gone out and they're performing works.

They've had the Jesus power, God's power, has been delegated to them to perform these miracles. And so as we see from chapters 2 or so up through chapter 6,

Jesus is gathering a crowd of people, not because he's preaching, although that's true, but because of the miracles that he's doing.

And so when the apostles go out, not at this point, they're still disciples, but when they go out, they've been given Christ's power and they're performing miracles.

So what do you suppose happens? People start following them. So when everybody comes back home, look, if Ben Affleck and Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg all get together in Boston, everybody notices and probably there's going to be a movie, right?

That's what happens. And that's exactly what's happening here. All of the disciples are coming back home and all of these crowds that have been following all of these different people are coming and they're like, oh, something's going on.

What's happening? So they try to get away. They're like, we got to get out of here. So they get on a boat, they try to sail away, but they're followed.

And so the crowd is following them, you know, because this is, I mean, it's the Sea of Galilee. They don't have giant sailboats. They can't, you know, kind of just go straight out.

So they've got to stay within, you know, view of land, which means that if you're on land, you can see them. So they're followed. People are following them along on the land.

And we see this in verse 33 of chapter 6. And so Jesus and the disciples, they dock their boat.

Jesus resumes his mission. He preaches and he teaches to the crowd. And that evening he feeds the 5 ,000.

And that brings us to verse 45. That's just the open. So our focus today is going to be on Jesus Christ.

We're going to look at Jesus Christ and we're going to see five individual moments.

I don't know if people take notes here in this church. I hope so. Five individual moments displaying the sovereignty of Jesus Christ, the deity of Jesus Christ.

And like a good Baptist, I know you're considering your denomination, they all start with R. Okay, so I'll make this very easy for you.

They all start with the letter R. The first event is the retreat.

Verses 45 and 46, Mark chapter 6. Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side to Bethsaida while he dismissed the crowds.

And after he had taken leave of them, he went up on the mountain to pray. So the crowds are fed.

The disciples gather the excess. We pretty much heard almost the same story, right, with the 4 ,000.

The disciples gather the excess. Their job was done. But even before Jesus deals with all of these people, he sends the disciples away.

Now, why? Why does he do this? There's a lot of potential reasons. First, all these people followed them to this place.

Some of these people were following the disciples to Capernaum and then here.

The disciples never got the rest that they needed. Every gospel has a focus on a particular aspect of Jesus' life.

What's the focus of the book of Mark? Anybody know? The focus of the book of Mark is on the servant life of Jesus Christ.

Jesus as a servant. And so, throughout the early chapters of the book,

Jesus is serving and performing so many miracles that he couldn't even go into cities because of the crowds that were there, chapter 1.

People were so desperate to get to him. One of my favorite pictures of Jesus' deity is in Mark chapter 2 when they tear the roof off of a building to lower someone inside.

His own family thought he was crazy for how much he was serving the crowds, Mark chapter 3.

And on and on and on it goes. And just like when Jesus got off the boat in verse 34, he put the needs of the many ahead of his own and he felt compassion on the people and he served them.

That's what Jesus did. He was a servant leader. And here we see Jesus put the disciples ahead of himself.

He says, you know, you go on without me. I'll deal with this. Right? It's a very Hollywood kind of thing.

Like, I will hold the door. Sorry if you know that reference. And you go on without me.

John Stott writes that making his disciples go on ahead shows Jesus' determination to provide the rest for his disciples, which he intended.

Jesus is determined to give them rest. We see another perspective in the

Johannine narrative in John chapter 6. We see the same event, but we see the response of the crowd. And this is very telling as well.

Listen to John 6 verses 14 and 15. When the people saw the signs that he had done, they said, this is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.

Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

So when we read the narrative, when we read the gospel narratives, there's a lot of times where we're like, wow, how do you not get it?

How do you not figure this stuff out? Of course, again, hindsight is 20 -20, right? But here they got it. They're like, oh, oh,

I know this. This is Moses in the wilderness. This is Moses and God in the wilderness. And Moses said that somebody would come and they would serve bread.

And here, that's the guy. Here he is. So they recognize this, right? They connect Jesus to the provision of bread from God for Israel.

And so we've seen it before and we'll see it again. The disciples, totally clueless. They were starting.

There are some signs of hope with the disciples at this point. But they were still easily swayed in what they understood.

So with thousands of people calling for Jesus to be made into this militaristic king because that's what they wanted, these men could easily have been caught up in the excitement of that event.

We see that they get swayed and they get convinced of things that are not quite right.

So Jesus sends the disciples away. He says, you know what? Go. Go. You take care of yourselves. Don't worry about me.

I'll take care of this. And he dismisses the crowd. It's late. These people probably didn't prepare for following Jesus that day or the next day.

And they needed to go home. And then John says Jesus withdrew, probably silently.

It's like slipping out the back door of the theater, you know, when Elvis is singing. I don't know. I wasn't alive for Elvis.

But, you know, just to avoid the crowds, right? So he slips away silently and he does so to head to the mountain to pray.

Jesus' life is marked by prayer and marked by communion with God the Father. And in the Gospel of Mark, we see it recorded after some excitement, which is what we saw with the crowd.

So they see the sovereignty of Jesus Christ, if incorrectly, right?

They think he's going to be this militaristic king in verses 45 and 46 here.

And we see its sister passage in John. And as a response to that, Jesus encourages the disciples to retreat on the boat.

And he retreats onto the mountain. So that's number one, the retreat. And next we're going to see

Jesus' deity made manifest in the rescue. Retreat. Rescue.

Verses 47 and 48. And when evening came, the boat was out on the sea and he was alone on the land.

And he saw that they were making headway painfully, for the wind was against them. At about the fourth watch of the night, he came to them walking on the sea.

He meant to pass by them. Jesus heading to the mountain to pray was not,

I'm not going to, you know, in Jesus' name, in the Father's name, put it in the little prayer envelope with the official stamp and send it on to God and I'll be, you know, right behind you.

He was in communion with God the Father. We don't have it recorded. Why? Because he was alone. So we don't know really what that was like.

And it's very possible that we in our finite minds could not really fathom the depth of the communion between God the

Son and God the Father. But he's on the mountain for hours. And when he was finished, he saw divinely the status of his disciples.

They're, at this point, three or four miles away in the middle of the night. So when it says here, oh he saw them.

I mean, I know he's on a mountain and, you know, you got a pretty good line of sight, but it's the middle of the night. This is a supernatural vision.

Sometimes you study weird stuff when you're preparing a sermon. I read a research paper that was published 40 years ago on studies that were performed on the

Sea of Galilee and its exceptional wind system. And here's what it says. In the mornings, a lake breeze develops, blowing toward the shores of the lake.

So from the center of the lake, blowing out towards the shores. Late at night, here we are, a wind flow develops from the land toward the lake, which combines with the katabatic winds.

I didn't look that up. I don't know what it means. That blow along the steep slopes surrounding the Sea of Galilee.

So the wind comes in. It hits the mountains. And then it kind of swoops in and pushes in on the lake on all sides.

It's just the nature of the geography of this area. Almost like it was divinely created that way. What? It's these winds that the disciples are fighting.

And it is not looking good. Remember, they kind of have to stay sort of near the shore while they're, you know, working their way around.

But now in the middle of the night, that shore is blowing them out to sea. My pastor tells a story of this, because he's crazy.

If you know Pastor Mike at BBC, he's kind of nuts. But he did this, like, Alcatraz swim, where you swim from Alcatraz to the coast.

People are laughing. They're like, oh, that is crazy. But the story he tells is very interesting.

You have to basically swim upstream, because the sea is going to, the ocean is going to bring you down.

So if you start swimming toward your destination, by the time you get to the other side, you're, you know, 1 ,000 yards, half a mile kind of down coast.

That's not good. And what's happening here is something very similar. They're being blown off course. They've been pushed miles south of their intended destination.

They're straining at the oars at this point. They're rowing. They're trying to get this distance covered.

The same word that it says right here in verse 48 is, where it says straining, is translated as torment elsewhere in Scripture.

Like, this is not fun. This isn't a leisurely, you know, jaunt on the lake kind of thing. It's miserable business.

And once again, we see the compassion of Jesus Christ come to the surface. And this time it comes to the surface of the water.

At about the fourth watch of the night, Jesus came to them walking on the sea. A watch at that time is about three hours long.

So when you kind of do the math on this, they start around six in the evening. So this is the fourth watch, which is between 3 and 6 a .m.

I was not awake between 3 and 6 a .m. I would not want to be on the sea between 3 and 6 a .m.

And if I was on the sea awake between 3 and 6 a .m., I probably wouldn't be thinking quite right.

So as we look at this and we wonder why the disciples are so clueless, just think about the last time that you were awake at 3 to 6 in the morning and think about it being even worse and we'll have a little bit of compassion on them,

I think. But getting back to this, they're exhausted. They're harried and they're worried about their ability to make it to the other side.

And Jesus comes to them. This is the rescue. Some people have tried to rationalize this.

You may have heard, like, oh, well, maybe they were next to a sandbar and that's how Jesus was walking on the water. Or maybe it was an optical illusion or some other thing.

Or maybe he's God. I mean, that's a possibility as well. This is, make no mistake, a divine miracle.

And let's remember the situation. The seas are rough. It's crazy.

It's not a calm night. We go camping every summer and I like to get up in the morning and walk out to the lake.

And it's, like, glass calm, right? You could almost imagine Jesus maybe could walk on that water.

Like, okay, I get that. But that's not what this is, right? This is a storm. We don't have a lot of details here, but this is not calm water.

Remember those katabotic winds or whatever they're called? They're blowing on this lake and pushing them.

And if there's enough wind to push the boat, the surface is not calm.

Matthew 14 says the seas are battering and harassing the boat, right? And so it's clear that Jesus' purpose was, however, he intended to do it, to help these men, right?

He saw them on the lake and he went to them. And then this weird thing happens. It says he meant to pass by them.

Like, what's up with that? Rude, right? What is that?

And here we see the second glimpse of the deity of Jesus Christ. Do not miss this. This is so easy to miss in this passage, and it is incredible.

I was telling Derek beforehand. I was like, there's two things that when I was studying this. See, he said, I'll try to pay attention.

Well, here's one of them. That I was just like, whoa. Like, I had to put my Bible down and be like, let me just say la, right?

Let me just take this one in. This is one of them. Pay attention to this, please. Throughout scripture, mostly in the

Old Testament, we see many examples of God showing himself to mankind in some way. Do you know what these are called?

It's kind of a technical theological term. Anybody know? Theophany. All right.

I am among my people. Excellent. Theophanies. The most well -known of these would include things like the burning bush.

Theophany. God appearing to Abraham as a smoking oven or a burning torch. Or, listen, of God hiding

Moses in the cleft of the rock and passing by him. Sproul writes this.

This is what happened on the Sea of Galilee. Jesus self -consciously made himself a theophany.

The glory of God bursting through the shroud of humanity of Jesus was made manifest to the disciples.

In the middle of their distress, they looked up and saw the glory of God passing by.

The glory of the Lord shining out on the Son of God. That's why this is here.

Because this is a divine theophany. Jesus had every intention for the men in that boat to see him.

Lane notes that it would have been more appropriate for this text to be translated, for he intended to pass their way.

Oh, well, when you change the words and say, oh, who's going to pass their way? That's like, oh, well, you know,

I was driving to the park and I realized I was close to your house, so I figured I'd pass your way. Now, all of a sudden, we're like, oh, oh, maybe he didn't actually want them to see him, right?

Remember, this is a translation. The idea of passing by seems odd because it's not the intention of the writer in the way that we think about it.

Jesus' presence in the sight of these men was intentional. It was on purpose.

Beshore goes further and calls this divine theophany a sign for the twelve. This is a sign for the twelve.

This is not, I was just going to kind of skirt around and then be on the other side and say, nanny, nanny, boo -boo, I made it here faster than you.

No, that's not what's happening. Jesus being seen is deliberate. And so that's the rescue.

We've seen the retreat. We've seen the rescue, and now we see the reaction. Verses 49 and 50, we see the reaction.

He meant to pass by them. But when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and cried out, for they all saw him and were terrified.

But immediately he spoke to them and said, take heart, it is I. Weary from fighting the elements, again, three to six in the morning.

The men catch a glimpse of someone or something coming toward them on the water, but this doesn't make sense. People can't walk on water.

What is this? The word ghost here is only found in this passage, and it's harmonies, but this passage, and it's the word, tell me if this sounds familiar, phantasma.

Oh, what does it say in the Greek? Same thing it says in the English. Phantasma, phantasm. They rightly identified this theophany as a supernatural event.

They figured that part out, right? This is not normal. But they were wrong about its source. This word can also be translated demon, and the disciples certainly had seen their share of demons during their ministry.

So maybe some of this fear before they figured out what was going on was justified. But it's not just shock.

You watch a movie and there's like the jump scare, and you're like, okay, that's cheap. If you're going to scare me, do it well, you know.

This is not a jump scare. This isn't a shock. The word here is terrasso, which often means in scripture, like, deeply worried or stirred up.

Let not your heart be troubled. That's this idea, this terrasso idea.

There is a different word that means surprise, and that's not this. It is a deep fear the men in the boat have.

Not just surprise because they suddenly saw something coming. Now think about this. I mean, this makes sense. All of this makes sense.

You have men in a boat. They're exhausting. They're exhausted. Well, they're probably exhausting too. They're exhausted.

They're rowing in the boat. Who here has rowed in a boat before? Anybody? Okay. What direction are you facing when you row in a boat?

You're facing the way you came, not the way you're going, right? So just put yourself in their position.

So they're on the oars at three o 'clock in the morning in the middle of a storm, totally exhausted, and they see someone coming.

It's not like, you know, Jesus was like, hello, how are you, right? They see him coming along on the waves. That's kind of creepy.

Like, that's a good scare. Like, right? That, I mean, if you see that in a movie, that's like, okay, you have this dwelling, like it's growing, this concern, this fear until you kind of understand what's going on.

The very men who are doing this are the ones that see him. They see someone coming out of this kind of frothing mist, headed right for them, walking on the water.

And that fear wasn't going away until Jesus Christ, the great comforter, spoke the words that would relax them.

He spoke to them and said, take heart. It is I. Do not be afraid.

That's the ESV. I don't know what version you guys were, I actually was going to ask about that afterwards. I'll find out.

Some other translations say, be of good cheer. Morning, really? Cheer?

Oh, be of good cheer. This is not a cause for concern, but a cause for joy.

Your master has returned to you. Hendrickson writes that when Jesus spoke the words, take courage, it is

I. Do not be afraid. He must have momentarily shocked his disciples, but the immediate shock became a tremendously glad surprise.

So we have the retreat from the crowd, showing Jesus' incredible capacity to put others before himself, which we see over and over again.

Determined to extricate his disciples from the crowd, he sends them on ahead. He says, go, go.

Then we saw people's identification of Jesus as Messiah, right? Which was correct, although their idea of what

Messiah meant was a little bit off. Then we saw the rescue, Jesus seeing his disciples in peril. Remember, he's up on the mountain, he sees them three, four miles away in the middle of the night, a divine vision.

And he comes to them by performing this incredible miracle of walking on the water. Which, by the way, as I think about this,

I'm like, well, if you think about, especially like after his resurrection, like he just appears, right?

So he could have just appeared, right? He could have done that. But again, it's important that we go through this process, that we see what's happening here.

Jesus walking on the water, this divine theophany, it's important. And after that, we saw the reaction.

These wearied men, these exhausted men, seeing what seemed like a phantom or a ghost coming across the water, gripped with terror, they cried out, only to realize that it is

Jesus himself. And that brings us to the reveal in verses 50 and 51.

We've already seen Jesus' response to the cries from the disciples, but let's look even more closely at this, because it is, in fact, very profound.

Verses 50, 51, Mark chapter 6. For they all saw him and were terrified, but immediately he spoke to them and said, take heart, it is

I, do not be afraid. And he got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased, and they were utterly astounded.

Jesus' reaction to this, I'm sorry, the disciples' reaction to the sight of Jesus required, called for, self -revelation.

They're freaking out, they don't know what's going on, and so Jesus reveals himself. Jesus' response, recorded in all three accounts, is identical in both the

English and the Greek. John omits the beginning, take heart, or be of good cheer, but the rest is identical, and this matters.

And I'll tell you why, don't worry, I'm not gonna leave you there. The words are important. When Jesus self -identifies, what we read as, it is

I, is important, it is significant. Jesus uses the phrase, ego emi.

Ego emi appears 67 times in the New Testament, most of which in the Gospel of John. It appears over 100 times in the

Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament. Ego emi translates, literally,

I am. This is an important detail, that all three renditions of this narrative are in perfect agreement on.

We very frequently will read the Gospel narratives, and something will be phrased a little bit differently, because Luke is focused on the

Son of Man, John is focused on the Son of God, Mark is focused on the suffering servant, so the things that they're looking at are a little bit different, right?

But here, they're all identical. Sproul, again, writes, this is an intensive form of I am.

It is also an expression that translates the ineffable name of God that God gave to Moses from the burning bush.

I am who I am. If there is any doubt that this was a theophany,

Jesus' use of the sacred name of God to identify himself as he walked on the water made it virtually certain.

Ego emi. So this passage, it's easy for us to see this, and kind of just looking at the, oh, it's a miracle he walked on water, and we're on to the next thing, right?

And it's so easy to miss this. But although he has made this declaration before, it is no less wondrous, and one might argue even more incredible than the fact that he walked on water, that he declared, it is

I, the eternal, infinite God, and I am here. Now, if we look at Matthew, you can turn there if you want to,

Matthew 14, verse 28, we're gonna look, a couple of verses here.

This is a kind of an interlude that immediately follows Christ's self -identification. Matthew 14, starting in verse 28, we're gonna look at another small interlude here.

And Peter answered him, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water. And he said, come.

So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and he began to sink, and he cried out,

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

Here we see a picture of Peter, who's kind of always the brash one, right? Mark, and I know you know this, it's kind of the memoirs of Peter, right?

Mark was Peter's disciple in much the same way that Timothy was Paul's disciple. And so this is, it kind of makes me smile whenever Peter does something dumb in the book of Mark, because you can just kind of imagine he's sitting by a fire or whatever kind of arrangement it was where he's just regaling

Mark of stories of his time with Christ. He's like, oh, man, I was dumb. You're not going to believe this, right?

That's how I imagine he tells this story. Because if Peter's going to talk about himself, you'd think he'd be like, oh,

I was awesome. Let me tell you what we did, right? Like, I mean, that's how people tell stories, right? But no,

Peter recognizes here how amazing Jesus is, and he tells this to Mark, and that's how it is here.

Of course, it is all divinely orchestrated. I understand that. But remember,

I will never deny you, Jesus. Okay. So Peter jumps up, and he's so excited.

He's like, oh, oh, it's really you. John MacArthur writes, he, Peter, knew

Jesus had the power to enable him to walk on the water, but he did not presume to attempt this feat without his express instruction.

Peter's request was an act of affectation built on confident faith. He did not ask to walk on water for the sake of doing something spectacular, but because it was the way to get to Jesus.

And as we see later in this gospel, the disciples have a bad habit of thinking that their faith and their power generates from within themselves, right?

We think of the transfiguration. They go up on the mountain. They come down. The disciples are trying to cast this demon out of this boy, and they can't do it.

Why? Because they have forgotten, apparently, where their power comes from. And Jesus says what? This faithless generation.

Not talking about the boy, but talking about the disciples. And then they, you know, get shown up for being foolish.

And then in like the very next passage, it's crazy. I don't understand this. They're arguing about which one of them is the best.

Come on, guys. Really? Like, stop. I think my kids recognize that tone.

Just making sure they're paying attention. All right. One commentator made an interesting observation of this when he suggested that our journey to God is impossibly far if it rests on our faith.

We will never make it, but as we rest in and rely on his power, we are with him instantly. And of course, we saw from Ephesians 2, wonderful, incredible, fantastic passage of the book of Ephesians, our faith is not something that is generated within ourselves, right?

That it's a gift from God. We come to him with nothing. Nothing. Rock of ages. Oh, some of those verses were beautiful.

So we see the failure of Peter's faith in verse 31, right? That's what happens. Peter's faith wavers as soon as he steps out of the boat.

He failed to trust Jesus and the distance between them because he was thinking like, okay, I can do this. And he saw the winds and was afraid, was instantly insurmountable.

But God, Jesus, immediately reaches out his hand and Peter was there. Of course, there's the response.

Oh, you of little faith. Little faith. Why did you doubt? And of course, we can ask ourselves the same question.

Why do we doubt every single day? Why do we doubt? It's because of this exact issue. One of my pastors always says that the core of every sin is unbelief.

The core of every sin is unbelief. We fail to keep our eyes and our faith fixed upon the righteous one who, in this case, when walking across the tumultuous waters of a midnight sea is calm and in control.

After this, Jesus returns to the boat with Peter and like before, the winds stop instantly. And like before, the disciples are amazed again.

Even the winds and the sea obey Jesus Christ, right? This just happened.

I mean, they're not going to think in that way. You know, oh, this just happened in chapter four. Why am I amazed again? But that's what

I think. Guys, this happened before. But it's still incredible. Why are they this way?

And that's the question that, you know, we find ourselves asking for sure. But in reality, it's us too.

Why are we this way? Why are we looking for that next miracle? Why are we saying, you know, if God, you'll do this thing for me, then, you know, then, oh,

I'll be really renewed in my faith. Why? Why? Why? Why? Well, we can take a look at the next passage and maybe get a glimpse of that.

We've seen the retreat. We've seen the rescue. We looked at the reaction of the disciples.

And we've just seen Jesus Christ reveal himself to them. Finally, we can look at the reason.

Why did it happen in this way? Why did it work out like this? Why is the reaction what it is? Verse 52, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.

Jesus could have immediately brought his disciples to the other side of the sea with him. He didn't need to do any of this stuff.

He could have gone to the other side and instead of nanny, nanny, noo -noo, he could have, you know, oh, look, hey, the side is here.

We're good. Everybody's good. We can all sleep and get that rest that I promised. This is something the disciples needed to see.

That's why this happened. Stott writes this, the experience of any one of these miracles ought to by now have been for them an avenue for perceiving that the one with whom they are dealing,

Jesus their teacher, is endowed with the kind of power they normally expect only of God revealed in their scriptures.

Yet they still treat each miraculous event as self -contained. Insofar as they ascribe it to Jesus, they have not yet learned to look within and behind him to discern the source, a perception which will at once open their eyes to who

Jesus is. This is the core to their failure.

When Mark writes that their hearts were hardened, it's a clear indication of the confusion of the disciples so far. They can't draw the conclusion that they ought to from the miracles of Jesus Christ.

Luther wrote this, by the example of the feeding of the 5 ,000, they should have been made so strong in the faith as not to have been terrified at an apparition.

It doesn't matter. Nothing matters. All of these things that we see that scare us, none of it matters.

Christ is victorious. Matthew implies some recognition recording the proclamation from the disciples that truly you,

Jesus, are the son of God. But if you keep reading, you'll see more of the same cluelessness. Academically, Mark's description does give us a little bit more insight.

He reminds us that the miracles we see provide insight into other events, right? It doesn't say here they did not understand his walking on water.

It says they did not understand about the loaves. Had they understood that what really happened with the loaves was this miracle and considered the source of that miracle, they would have better insight into who

Jesus was and his deity. It also shows us that these men are not dumb. This is very important.

And I want to stress this because this is something that I have struggled with a lot. These men are not dumb.

Their obtuseness is not a function of their intelligence. It is a function of their heart condition.

These men have not received saving faith from God. Their misunderstanding reflects unbelief, not foolishness.

I mean, it does by extension, but this isn't, I just can't comprehend this. I'm just not smart enough.

That's not what's happening here. This is the heart condition of these men because they have not received saving faith from God.

So as we wrap this up, I want to give you another R. I know I said there were five R's. I kind of lied to you. I kept this one in my back pocket, but I want to give this one to you so that you can apply this to your lives every single day.

I think this will help you. As we, as Christians, see points in time where God is clearly working in our lives, we need not be governed by, what has he done for me lately?

It's a very simple R. It is remember. Remember Jesus.

Even though the disciples were with Jesus, perhaps it's easier for us to look at all of scripture, see the teachings of Jesus Christ and the epistles, and be reminded of the faithfulness of Jesus Christ.

Deuteronomy 7, 9 says, know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations.

I've been reading Deuteronomy in my morning Bible time, and Deuteronomy chapter 8, the entire chapter,

Deuteronomy chapter 8, I would commend it to you to read, especially in the context of everything that's happening in Israel, is all about telling

Israel, remember what God has done for you. Remember how he brought you out of Egypt.

Remember how he delivered you. Remember how he fed you. I don't think anybody here was alive back then.

If so, you look great. But we can still look at this and remember.

Remember what Jesus has done for us. Remember what Jesus has done for you, Christian.

My brothers and sisters, our God is so wondrous, so miraculous. He richly blesses us every single day.

First John 1, 9, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Remember his commitment to us, not because of anything that we have done, but because of what he has given to us.

We're not better than these men. We're not better than these disciples. We still fail. And when we do, when we fail, when we have that hopelessness, remember

Jesus. When you argue and fight in your family or at school or at work or at home, now it's homework, right, with everything that's happened.

So you have homeschool and now you have homework. I wonder if we're going to have debates now about is homework or work work like the more sanctifying work.

I don't know. But remember, remember these things in light of what Jesus has done for you, in light of his sacrifice for the

God -hater that you were because you were a God -hater before he saved you. Is that argument with your spouse or your kids or your teacher, is that really godly?

When you're driving and you get cut off by some lunatic or inattentive driver, got to do your wordle.

And that rage flashes up inside of you. I'm convicted by this very statement. Remember Jesus Christ. When all the good things happen, when we achieve good things, remember him who equipped you for that work.

When the doctor calls, remember the great physician. When you fall, and you will, remember the loving arms of your savior.

We saw this today. Our God is not hidden. Jesus divinity is on display in plain sight for all to see.

We see this in Romans 1, do we not? We see his divinity in retreat. We saw a divine rescue.

We looked at the disciples' reaction to the supernatural, the incredible revelation of Jesus Christ as the infinite

God -man. And finally, we saw why it was so hard for these disciples to understand these miracles.

It is important for us to remember all that Jesus Christ was and is and will be.

Remember Jesus and rejoice to the glory of God. And when you remember him, Christian, when we remember who we were before he saved us, and we look at where we are now, how much more driven are we to praise him?

How much more do we have the desire to praise his name for all that he has done for us, for his glory?

Amen? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we just thank you for this time that we have together where we can look at you, where we can focus our eyes upon Jesus.

And we turn our eyes upon him. We thank you, Father, for the opportunity to look at this passage deeply this morning, to remember that Jesus Christ is

God, to remember that he does not hide that, to remember, Father, what he has done for us.

We're so thankful, Lord, that you have even brought us to this place. We wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for your divine plan.

And we just thank you for that. I just pray, Father, for Kendall and his family as they travel. I pray for Derek and his new little boy.

Lord, I just pray for this congregation that you would help us to keep our eyes fixed upon your son and remember him this week.