Matthew chapter 14:22-33 (continued)

“Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, while He sent the multitudes away.  And when He had sent the multitudes away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. Now when evening came, He was alone there.  But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary.

Now in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, ‘It is a ghost!’ And they cried out for fear.  But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.’

And Peter answered Him and said, ‘Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.”’ So He said, ‘Come.’ And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, ‘Lord, save me!’

And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”  And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.  Then those who were in the boat came and worshiped Him, saying, ‘Truly You are the Son of God.’”

Last time we looked at the account of the “Feeding of the 5000.” We saw the responsibility we have as the Lord’s servants to take care of the needs of the people around us. We explored the power of being a servant and our call to be servants to each other in the family of God and especially to the unsaved masses around us. Today we will look at another famous account in the life and ministry of Jesus as He walked this earth, come with me to a boat in the middle of the Sea of Galilee during a storm in the wee hours of the morning.

This is a familiar account to anyone who has been in church for a long time. This is one of the most popular Bible stories ever told and there are many of you that will approach this lesson with rolled eyes and maybe a hint of familiarity that leads us all to complacency when handling the Word of God.

I offer that this is the defining moment in the life of the apostle Peter. And it stands as a defining moment in our lives as well. This is a picture of how the Christian life is and how we should approach it. I love the apostle Peter; he is a very clear picture of who we are and who we can be in Jesus. He is a reminder to us that failure is not the end; often it is the beginning of a walk with Jesus that will change lives for eternity.  We will fail, Jesus is there to catch us and make our failures His victory.

Jesus Finally Gets Away, Verses 22-23

When we began our look at the ‘Feeding of the 5000’ Jesus was trying to get away for some solitude to mourn the death of His cousin and friend, John the Baptist. Well the people did not let Him get away they followed Him resulting in the previous encounter.  But the people are fed, they have been sent home and it is now into the evening and they are all gone.  Jesus sends the disciples away in a boat into the Sea of Galilee and He goes off by himself to mourn.

Here we learn a couple of very important lesson about the Lord and how He deals with us. First Jesus sent the disciples away into the Sea of Galilee knowing that there would be a storm. This is hard for us to fathom since we, as protective parents, try to shield our kids from danger. The thought of sending them out into danger deliberately is foreign to most of us. But it is important to notice that in verse 22 we are told that Jesus “made His disciples get in the boat.”

This was a deliberate act on His part.  God will allow you to get into situations that are stormy, in fact if we are to take the Bible at face value God will actually send you out into the storm. The sea was calm when they left or they would not have launched, but the storm lurked out in the midst of the sea. God of course had the power to stop the storm before they even got into the boat. He had the power to warn them ahead of time that there was going to be a storm and give them the chance to sail around the storm.  But, God simply put them in the path of the storm. Or maybe consider this; what if God sent the storm to them?

There are things in your life that are storms, deaths, job losses, family stress, illness, a wayward child, financial stresses and a myriad of things that can come our way.  These things come to us not because of sin or failure but simply that God allows it.  In fact these men had just left a great victory and maybe some of them still had baskets of food left over from the “feeding of the 5000” with them.

They actually still had the evidence of God’s great power in their sights.  And it is at this time that they are tested and put into the storm.  God is an awesome teacher and one who never stops teaching.  He is constantly challenging us if we want to be challenged. In John 6:60-70 we find that once Jesus begins some hard lesson on being true disciples that a lot of his followers leave Him and just the 12 men and a few women as we learn in other accounts are left, He asks them why they are staying and we have these famous words from Peter:

“But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.  69 Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Once we have come to this point and we understand and accept who Jesus is, and we choose to stay with Him, we then give Him license to transform us into His image.  This is what storms are for.  They come to humble us, magnify God, build faith and create in us, the image of Christ.

Secondly we learn that it may seem that Jesus/God has abandoned us in the storms of life. It may seem that God has gone off and left us to fend for ourselves but make no mistake God/Jesus knows exactly where you are and at the right time, the time that brings Him the most glory and humbles us the most, Jesus will show us. He shows up walking above the storm, walking on it and showing that He is unfazed by our circumstanced and is in fact, in control of all of our circumstances.

Don’t Be Afraid, Verse 27

Wow, that is easy for Jesus to say, He already knows what is going to happen. There is a legend going around that the phrase ‘don’t be afraid’ and its derivatives are mentioned 365 times in the Bible. If you have ever watched the movie Facing the Giants you would have heard that.

I will admit that I have done searches on that phrase mentioned in the movie and I was not able to find the reference 365 times. However we are told here by Jesus not to be afraid. Do not be afraid in the storms of life and when we appear to be engulfed in turmoil and strife. We should not let our circumstance betray our trust in God’s ability, God’s power and God’s promises.

When we are in the storms of life and we will be, this is a given and once the initial shock of the diagnosis is gone, or the death has passed or whatever happens has happened then we need to let our trust in the Word of God begin to take over. This is where the power of constant and consistent Bible reading and study is essential.

The only way to fight fear and despair is with the Word of God. It takes the power of the Word of God to stand in the midst of life’s storms. It also bring us to a point where we either have to trust in God’s promises or not, but storms do not allow us to sit on the fence. God is God or He is not; if He is God, then He is God in the storm and more importantly the God of the storm. Do not be afraid.

In verse 32 the storm stops as soon as Jesus is in the boat and the men are humbled and confess that Jesus is the Son of God. This is the ultimate goal of the storms in our lives to magnify God and bring us into a right understanding of who Jesus is.  Storms are there to BENEFIT us, not destroy us.

Peter Walks on Water, Verses 28-29

Peter walked on water!!!!  I am going to bet you that he never forgot that ever in his life.  He was a fisherman when Jesus found Him and he had spent his entire life on a boat, but never had he walked on water.  But that night Peter walked on water.  But there was something ever more important for us.

Peter got out of the boat. The other 11 did not. When I was a kid I heard so much about Peter’s lack of faith and how he sank. Yes he did. and we should not miss that but what was MOST important was that Peter got out of the boat and he actually walked on water on the way to Jesus and he walked on water on the way back to the boat, notice verse 32, “when they got back to the boat.”

He did something that none of the others did.  He stepped out in faith even in the face of pure and real logic.  He stepped out in faith in the midst of a storm; he, for a brief moment that would set the tone for the rest of his life in Jesus, saw Jesus and not the storm. Of course we also recall Peter was the one who denied Jesus on the night before the crucifixion. But we often forget that it was this same Peter that Jesus went and called back into leadership in John 20.

This was the same Peter that drew a sword and charged a Roman guard to try to deliver Jesus from being arrested, John 18: 10-11. Imagine that this fisherman was charging a Roman troop by himself to deliver Jesus. Don’t tell me that walking on water did not change his life. Yes his understanding of God’s plan needed a bit of refining and he needed to let God be god.  But there is no question that Peter was the leader of the NT church in Israel after Jesus ascended and he was the leader for a long time.  Did he still have failures? Yes he did.  But Peter led.

I don’t know about you, but I would rather be the guy out in the water who walked a few steps and then sank than the 11 in the boat who never knew what it was like to walk on water. I want to be that guy that when Jesus is looking for a leader He will come and touch me on the shoulder. I want to have the faith to charge an obviously bigger enemy and to be out numbered but to trust Jesus so much I just pull out my sword and head into the battle.

Call me rash, Peter was. We need this kind of boldness today in our churches we need some men and women who step out of their boats into the middle of stormy seas and even if they sink, they will forever change the course of their lives. They will be able to look back and know that Jesus is the Son of God and that in Him, by Him and with Him they can walk on water, conquer the enemy, survive the storm and be triumphant in this life.  Come let us walk on water together with Jesus.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8: 35-39).

Missionarybaptistchruch76@yahoo.ca

www.mississaugamissionarybc.com

 

Matthew chapter 14:13-21 (continued)

“ Jesus heard it, He departed from there by boat to a deserted place by Himself. But when the multitudes heard it, they followed Him on foot from the cities. And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick. When it was evening, His disciples came to Him, saying, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is already late. Send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food.’ Jesus said to them, ‘They do not need to go away.

You give them something to eat’ they said to Him, ‘We have here only five loaves and two fish.’ He said, ‘Bring them here to Me.’ Then He commanded the multitudes to sit down on the grass. And He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples; and the disciples gave to the multitudes. So they all ate and were filled, and they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments that remained.  Now those who had eaten were about five thousand men, besides women and children.”

Last time we looked at the death of John the Baptist and discussed that when we make stands for the truth that we need to accept the fact that being hurt or killed because of that stand is a reality. We live in a time when Christians are being executed because they refuse to renounce the name of Jesus.

About a year ago we saw that a murderer went into a facility in the USA and asked his victims if they believed in Jesus; if they did, he shot them. John the Baptist was and is one of many martyrs. There will be many more in the next few years from all corners of the world. Jesus told us this sobering truth in Matthew 16:24-25,

“Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. ‘For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.…’”

In all my years of growing up in the Lord’s churches I did not ever have to fear for my life. But as we move closer and closer to the Lord’s return I look at my children and I wonder what price they will have to pay for the name and cause of Christ? I pray that I will equip my children to live for Jesus so that if the time comes to die for Jesus they will see the worth. Today we will visit one of the most famous of the events in Jesus’ life here on earth. In this feeding of the 5000 we will explore some things that we all know and maybe look at a thing or two to make us all think.

Jesus Can’t Get Away for a Break, Verse 1

One of the things that can get misplaced in the study of the life of Jesus here on earth is his humanity. Jesus was 100 percent man. He ate, he drank, he slept, he sweated, he had to take time for bodily functions and he needed some alone time every now and then.  When Jesus woke up in the morning His hair was messed up just like ours.

He at times needed a shower or a bath, I guess in that day. His feet got dirty as He walked the streets of Jerusalem and His hands would have been calloused like the hands of a working man, say a carpenter. In this case Jesus just needed some alone time by himself to mourn the death of His cousin and so he went off by boat, to find a bit of solitude.

No such rest would come on this day. The people simply found out where He was going and ran to meet Him. These folks came from all the surrounding cities to Jesus. Some of them would have walked very far with their children and wives to see Jesus and to hear His teaching.  Maybe some were looking for healing and help for a loved one.

Whatever the reason they flocked to Jesus and no amount of distance that He put between Him and them seemed to be enough. Jesus drew crowds just about everywhere He went; some were believers and others, the haters, like the Pharisees and Sadducees. Some came to be healed and others to see the show. But in the midst of these people and even amongst the elders of Israel were people who genuinely gave their lives to Jesus and called Him Lord.

 Jesus Had Compassion , Verse14

The true heart of a servant is one who puts aside personal needs to serve other. Jesus set a very high bar in the area of service. He was selfless when it came to the people who came to Him.  This day He was just in need of a few minutes to himself, some peace and quiet, maybe a time to pray and commune with His Father. Rather than striking out and stating His own needs He met their needs with compassion, and this drove Him to help.  We see at the end of the verse that He healed their sick.

I am so guilty of seeking my own needs first in many situations, most often when it comes to my children. I work a secular job as well as pastor a church and sometimes on a Sunday afternoon, I just want to sit and do nothing, watch some football or vegetate and not have to think. But my children need to me to be there to take them somewhere or do something or simply be engaged. But I am selfish and put my needs first, I am not compassionate to them and I am certainly not gracious at times.

Jesus knew that His time on earth was a short stint and so He simply made the most of every waking minute. He gave His all, all the time, and held nothing back. How are we in the area of service? Are we selfless like Jesus or selfish? Are we givers or takers? Do we make time for the ones we say that we love realizing, like Jesus, that the time we have together here is short and precious? We always assume that we will have tomorrow.  There were many who can testify that tomorrow never comes.

Jesus works into evening as we see in verse 15. Now this could have been as early as about 3 pm in the afternoon for us. The evening sacrifice in the Temple for instance was at 3 pm.  So this does not necessarily mean that it was night. To us, evening at least means that the sun is going down. The disciples wanted Jesus to send the people away into the surrounding villages to buy something to eat and make their own arrangements for food.

This was a futile task as the account clearly states that they were in a desert place. Often we do the prudent thing to avoid doing the right thing. These people had small children with them, there were women as well and they had travelled great distances to see Jesus and to hear him and be healed. This is kind of like when we offer to pray for someone as an excuse not to some anything at all. But Jesus would have none of this instead Jesus gives the command to ‘give them something to eat’ in verse 16.

Our Resources Are Low,  Verse 17

In the John 6 account of the same event, we find that Peter offers that 200 denarii would not be enough to feed these many people. In doing a bit of research about the denarii on the website historicJesus.com we find that one denarii was a day’s wages for a common labourer. So Peter was telling Jesus and us that about 2/3 of a year’s wage would not be enough to feed these many people.

I want us to consider the irony of this situation. Jesus had just spent a large part of the day healing people of various diseases, by this time the disciples had seen Jesus turn water to wine, cast out demons and do all manner of miracles and here they were stumped by how to feed a large group of people. This is how we are with the Lord very often, we repeat passages like Psalm 23 with fervor and we cry and feel all tingly inside but when the time comes to exercise true faith we cower behind rational explanations

Even when they brought the young man to Jesus with the few fish and the few loaves they were not looking for a miracle, they were still looking for a way out. Their words were not words of faith, “what are they among so many” and in Matthew we see them say they “only” have these few resources. They still wanted out of taking responsibility for these people. Jesus would have none of that. We must take responsibility for the people that Jesus puts in our path.

The New Testament church must take responsibility for the masses of people around us who stand by and complain of a lack of resources is not the right way. Apparently we can sing, He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, the wealth in every mine and I know He really cares for me” and not really mean it.  It is nice song but do we actually believe it?

Will God take care of you? Did He take care of about 2,000,000 people in the wilderness journey that we read about in Exodus? Did He not feed, water, clothe, and yes, He even shod every single one of them.  Read Exodus 8: 3-4:

“He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD. Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years.”

God allowed the Israelites to be in tough situations that made them turn to God. The purpose was to realize that God is our Sustainer and our Provider.  He is the one, not our money, our jobs, our pensions, our retirement plans, our inheritances and certainly not the government run lotteries. God and God alone is our Provider. Here the disciples were about the get schooled by Jesus about His ability to provide.

He fed more than 15,000 people from five loaves of bread and 2 small fishes. It is not the size of the problem that we should look at, it is the size of our God. Some of us sing about a big God but in all practicality we treat Him as a small God. I will admit that I had to learn to trust my BIG GOD the hard way. God blessed me with a family; we have three children, and my income did not go up very much if at all.

In some cases it went down, I was working and we tithed and tried to give what we could.  But we had to depend on God to help us and He did in miraculous ways. He revealed that He is the same God who took care of the Jews in the wilderness; He takes care of my family. God continues to expand our faith by bringing us to places where we have to forgo human reasoning and simply let God be God.

Give All You Can Cheerfully and Faithfully, Verse 18

In John 6: 9 we see that Andrew finds a young lad with some food, some fish and a few loaves of bread. Jesus took them, blessed them and distributed to the people around him.  He gave to the disciples and they fed the people. Notice that Jesus made the disciples feed the people, He did the supplying but they took the food to the people. This was truly a miracle in that Jesus met the needs of the people with great power and authority.

He not only provided for them needs of the 15,000 or so people there He actually provided more than was needed. In verse 20 we find that 12 baskets were filled with the leftovers. After taking a look at a few commentaries it would seem that these where the kind of personal baskets that the Jews would take with them on journeys, not large containers but enough to have a bit of food in it.

I do not know if the number 12 was significant but there were 12 Apostles and in John 6:12 we are told that they gathered the food that none would be lost. Food is precious to poor people; they made sure that every edible bit was saved. In our time today we take food and its abundance for granted. But one of the judgments that God sends on a nation that rejects Him and His ways is food shortages.

Just over the past four years the average food price has risen about 30% and a recent article on Fox News mentioned that prices will raise another 2-4% next year. The countries of North America have been blessed for many generations with food abundance, we should not take these blessings for granted, and the same God who gives, can take away.

This young lad had a story to tell for the rest of his life. A story of wonder and amazement and that star of it was Jesus. I wonder how many we will see in heaven simply because this young man spoke about the wonders and power of Jesus.

What about you?

What is your story?

Whenever I think of this I am reminded of the apostle Paul; he told the story of his conversion over and over again. In Acts 26:12-18 and in Acts 22: 6-11 we find Paul simply telling others what Jesus did for him.

What has Jesus done for you?

What miracle has He blessed you with?

Are you silent?

Your silence will simply cheat you out of great blessings. Make no mistake, God will be praised. You and I should count it as a privilege and a duty when we consider all that God has done for us.

“Oh give thanks to the LORD, for He is good, for His loving kindness is everlasting. Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the adversary” (Psalm 107:1-2).

Missionarybaptistchruch76@yahoo.ca

www.mississaugamissionarybc.com