Last week we studied the first miracle presented in this chapter, that which is known as the feeding of the 5000. Actually I said last week that another gospel account said that only the men totaled 5000, so we might assume that as many as 15000 people were present, including women and children. So it was a tremendous miracle that Jesus did, as the multitudes had followed Him and they had no place in which to buy food, and hardly anyone had bothered to bring food.
But I also told you last week something which I say often, and that is that every physical miracle presented in the gospel is given to illustrate a spiritual principle. And we determined that the principle that Jesus was teaching in the feeding of the 5000 was that He was the bread of life, by which man might receive spiritual life. Jesus gave a living illustration that He is the source of life. At the end of the chapter we are going to be looking at a rather long discourse given by Christ in which He talks about how He is the bread of life, by which we receive and are made alive spiritually. But in the first half of this chapter we have two miracles which serve as illustrations of life in and by the Spirit. The feeding of the 5000, and then Jesus walking on the water.
So in the first miracle, as Jesus supernaturally manufactured bread and fish from HIs hands, He powerfully demonstrates that He is the source of life. But if you look at vs.15, Jesus knew that the people weren’t interested in spiritual life, but only in how He could benefit their physical life. They wanted to make Him King. Everyone who follows politics recognizes that whoever can give the masses free food and free health care has the people’s vote. Jesus seemed to be healing everyone of their diseases, and now He’s providing free food, so “hey, let’s make Him King!” They wanted a King to deliver them from Rome and Jesus seemed at that point like the deliverer that Moses had been from their captivity to the Egyptians.
But that isn’t what Jesus wanted. He did not come to earth to set up a physical kingdom at this time. He said in John 18:36, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.” So Jesus did not come to enact a physical kingdom but to establish a spiritual kingdom. He came to make men spiritually alive, and once the spiritual aspect of the kingdom comes to completion, then He will come again physically to Earth and bring His physical kingdom into existence. So the principle we see there is that the spiritual empowers the physical. That is an important principle of the Christian life. The spiritual empowers the physical. That effect is what occurred in the garden of Eden. When the spiritual died, the physical died.
And that is the operative principle for the life of a Christian. The spiritual gives life to the physical. This principle is going to be preached by Christ later on in this very passage; Jesus said in vs.63 "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”
What Jesus did by feeding 15000 people was one of the greatest miracles in the Bible. And what I mean by that is the magnitude of the miracle. It wasn’t just one person being healed; but 15000 people eating food that He created. But what does that miracle teach us? It teaches us that the physical food that Jesus created and gave them to eat, may have sustained them physically, but it did not do anything for them spiritually. They were not saved as a result of eating the food that He provided. They would have been saved by responding in faith to what that taught; that He was the source of life, God incarnate. That’s the message that He was preaching, the message concerning the nature of the spiritual kingdom of God. If they had responded in faith to that message, they would have been saved. But the eating of fish and bread did not save them.
And folks, that’s a good example that eating the elements of communion, or taking the mass, will not, cannot, save you. It does not, it cannot impute righteousness to your account. Eph.2:8,9 says “For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.”
So though the feeding of the 5000 did not provide salvation, it illustrated that faith in Christ is the source of life, and that spiritual life as well as physical life comes through Him. But not all who heard Him that day, nor ate the miraculous food He provided were saved. Only by receiving the spiritual food He offered could they be saved and receive spiritual life.
Now then what is the meaning of the second miracle? Well because the people wanted to make Him king, we see Jesus sending the multitude away, according to the parallel passage in Mark 6, and then telling the disciples to get into the boat and sending them across the Sea of Galilee. So note first of all, this is not a miracle for the mixed multitude, but it’s a miracle for the saved, the believers, for the church if you will. So that’s going to give us a context for how to understand it. It’s for His followers, those that already have believed in Christ, and consequently are made spiritually alive.
I believe in some respects that this event is a foreshadowing of what to expect in the Christian life, as we live the spiritual life that we have been given - particularly for these disciples, but also for us in the church as well. And that is illustrated by the fact that Jesus is separated from His disciples. They don’t want to go away from Him, but He has to send them away. And I think that this prefigures the ascension of Christ after His resurrection. He offers Himself as the bread of life which was broken for us on the cross, and soon after His resurrection He is taken up into heaven and His followers are left alone. In this event we notice that Christ is alone on the mountain praying or interceding with the Father on behalf of the disciples. In Mark 6:48 it says that Jesus saw the disciples straining at the oars, and yet at that point He was on the mountain and they were several miles away on the sea in the darkness. This is a picture of the separation from Christ that both the disciples and the church would experience after His resurrection.
Now there are several things we can learn from this event. First of all, that trials are part of the predetermined, sovereign plan of God. Jesus, in His divine omnipotence, knows that a severe storm is coming, and yet He deliberately sends the disciples into the sea. You know, a lot of people expect that the Christian life is going to be a trouble free existence. That somehow, being a Christian is insurance that life is going to be smooth sailing. Come to Jesus and all your troubles will go away. But the Bible doesn’t promise that at all.
In fact, if we had the time I could show you scores of texts that show that we are promised tribulation in the Christian life. We are promised persecution. We are promised hardships. That’s not to say that Christians are necessarily going to experience more difficulties than the unsaved. On the contrary, I think the Bible teaches us that by following God’s way we are delivered from many hardships that the world encounters. But the primary difference between believers and unbelievers is that as Christians, God uses trials and tribulations to teach us and refine us, to enable us to be stronger spiritually, and to conform us to the image of Christ. That’s why James says in James 1:2, that we are to “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
So Jesus makes the disciples go on without Him, and notice that though the disciples don’t really want to go, or necessarily understand why, they are obedient to the Lord’s commands. In fact, they continue to be obedient even though all the circumstances seem to be against them. It should have only been a short trip by boat of about 7 miles, but the wind started to pick up against them. The wind of course produces waves which makes it almost impossible to row the boat with any forward speed. And then it gets dark. So there is a lot going against the disciples, even though they are being obedient. In fact, the trip seems to take forever. They leave Jesus on the shore before sunset and start rowing. And Mark says that it was the fourth watch of the night when Jesus came walking on the water towards them. That’s between 3am and 6am. Can you imagine rowing a boat against a gale force wind, with waves crashing over the front of the boat for perhaps as long as 8 hours? Those disciples could never have imagined that the trip would have lasted so long.
And there are so many things we can learn from that. The main thing I would emphasize is that the walk of faith, or the spiritual life is not easy. It’s not easy because it’s not natural. As a Christian, you are figuratively running against the wind. You are swimming against the current. The world is described in Ephesians 2:2 as a current, as a river course in which life rushes along. And that verse goes on to say that the course of this world is designed by the devil to keep you enslaved to it, to sweep you along to eventual destruction. So when salvation comes to us, and we are given new life in Christ, in which we walk in the Spirit, we are in effect striving against the current of this world which is opposed to us. And that is a battle. It’s so tempting sometimes to just give in to the current, to allow yourself to get swept along by the things of this world.
And in Mark 6:48 it says that Jesus sees them straining at the oars. I hope you can picture that. These guys were straining to make progress. The Christian life can sometimes require a battle that tests all your resolve. I’ll give those disciples something. They persevered. They kept at it. Eight hours after saying goodbye to Jesus on the shore they were still rowing with all their might. And they were still only in the middle of the lake. Listen, sometimes our trials last a lot longer than we think they should. Sometimes we think that there is no way that God could be in this situation. It’s gone on too long. There are too many things working against us.
I’ve been guilty of thinking that far too many times. I start counting all the things working against me, all the things which have gone wrong. I start thinking about how long I’ve been rowing and have made so little progress to show for it. And I sometimes get pretty discouraged. And then there is the darkness. How depressing is the darkness. The nights when you seem to wake up every hour and it’s still only the middle of the night. When you pray and doze off, and then wake up a few minutes later and do it again. And those nights seem to go on forever, and God seems so far away. Sometimes, we soldier on in obedience, but we have long since run out of joy and our hope is almost completely gone.
There is an old sermon which was written many years ago by an African American Baptist pastor by the name of S. M. Lockridge that I’ve heard a few times, which says, “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s a coming.” The idea of the sermon being that when it’s dark and things look hopeless, hang on, Sunday’s coming. The power of darkness was overwhelming on the Friday of crucifixion, but on Sunday, when the sun came up, it revealed that the Son of God has risen up victorious from the grave.
Well, the disciples still had a few hours to go before the sun would come up, and it was dark, it was raining, waves were threatening to sink their boat, they had made practically no progress, the wind was pushing them backwards for every foot forward they made, and it had gone on far too long. But what they didn’t realize was that Jesus was watching and praying for them on that mountain. Oh, if they could have only known that truth, how much more encouraged they might have been. I want you to know something this morning, ladies and gentlemen. No matter how difficult your long night of trial, no matter how long you have been straining against the oars, no matter how long the wind has been against you, or how big the waves are breaking against your boat, Jesus is watching over you, and He is praying for you.
I want you to know that you are not alone on that dark night of your trial. Jesus is watching you and praying for you. If you are HIs child, then He has promised to watch over you and to intercede on your behalf to God. Hebrews speaks of our great High Priest who is Jesus Christ, who has been seated at the right hand of the Father as our mediator, and intercessor. It says in Heb 4:13-16 “There is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
Now that should be a great comfort to us all. But notice that Jesus doesn’t just pray and leave them there to deal with it alone, but He comes to help them. However, I want to point out that Jesus delays coming until the disciples are completely worn out and the night is almost gone. You know, my biggest problem sometimes in the spiritual life is understanding the timing of God. Why does He so often delay? Why does He let us reach the end of our resources, the end of ourselves before coming to help us? I think it is to teach us that the end of our extremity is God’s opportunity. God wants us to reach the end of our strength so that we might look to His strength. Paul said in 2Cor. 12:10 “Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” The Lord’s strength is made perfect in my weakness, but I must recognize my weakness for His strength to be completed in me.
So Jesus finally comes to them, walking on the water in the midst of the storm. There is an interesting principle there. When you pray for someone, there is a good chance that God will appoint you to be the answer to your prayer. And Jesus illustrates that principle right there. I appreciate it when someone says I will pray for you. But sometimes, I think if they really prayed, perhaps they would find that God has appointed them to be the means by which that prayer is answered. God choses to use people to minister to His people. But sometimes I believe people try to get off the hook by saying they are praying and not doing anything. James said in James 2:16 if you say to someone in need, “'Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,’ and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?”
So Jesus comes to them, and the disciples see what they think is a ghost on the water walking towards them. Now a lot of people give the disciples a hard time about being frightened, but I think that when you have been in the middle of a fierce gale for 8 hours, and rowing yourself to exhaustion, probably haven’t eaten or drank anything because of the severity of the storm, you obviously haven’t been able to sleep either, and suddenly you see a figure walking on water through this storm in the middle of the night, you would probably freak out too.
Jesus says to them, “Take courage, it is I, be not afraid.” I don’t know for sure what fear Jesus was referring to. Was it the fear of the waves, the fear of the wind, the fear of the night, or the fear of Him? I sometimes think that we fear complete surrender to the Lord almost more than we do the terrors of tribulation. I’m amazed sometimes to talk to someone who is caught up in some destructive sin, to the point that it has almost completely destroyed their life. They have lost everything or are about to. And yet when you tell them that the only hope that they have is to surrender to the Lord and ask Him to help them you would think that you just asked them to do something terrifying. People are so afraid to surrender completely to Jesus, to ask Him to be their Savior and Lord. And I can only guess it’s because they are afraid that they will have to let go of the steering wheel of their lives and let God have control. We are so conditioned to try to control our lives. And the devil’s lie is that we still have control even when our lives are clearly out of control.
But I suppose at it’s simplest Jesus is saying that if we are God’s children, and we are doing what He tells us to do, we are living in obedience, then He is in control over the events of our life and we don’t need to be afraid. I’ve said it before and I will say it again; there is no safer place on earth than to be in the will of God, and there is no safe place outside of the will of God. If you are doing what God has told you to do, then you need not fear what man or nature can do to you. Rom. 8:31 “What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?”
This miracle illustrates that not only is God for us, but He is with us. Jesus said in Matthew 28:20, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” In the storms of our Christian life, we can be certain that not only does God superintend the trials we go through, but He has promised that Jesus would pray for us and watch over us as we go through them, and that He will be with us when we go through them. He says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” He says in Isaiah 43:1-2 “But now, thus says the LORD, your Creator, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel,"Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;I have called you by name; you are Mine! "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched,Nor will the flame burn you.” We can be unafraid of life’s trials when we know that the Source of life is with us.
As David says in Psalm 23, “yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not fear, for Thou art with me.”
And there is one more application that I want to make today which is that He is the strength and the supply we need, to do what He tells us to do. The disciples had rowed all night and made practically no progress. But John tells us that when Jesus got into the boat with them, they were immediately at the other side of the lake. It says in vs.21, “So they were willing to receive Him into the boat.” Listen, that’s not a picture of salvation, but sanctification. Jesus gives you new life at justification, but He empowers your life through sanctification. You get the power to overcome sin, and the power to get through temptation and trials when you let Jesus take command of your boat. When the Spirit of Christ dwells within us and leads us and guides us. That’s the secret of sanctification. We have been given the power to triumph over sin and temptation, but it’s not in our strength, it’s not by straining at the oars, it’s in giving Jesus permission to captain our vessel. When we look to Him for wisdom in every decision, for guidance in every action and then let Him direct our lives according to His will, then we will find ourselves arriving safely at our destination.
But the destination for a Christian isn’t just heaven, ladies and gentlemen. The goal for a Christian is to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. To be remade in the image of God. To reflect the light of Christ in our lives. And to do that in our own power and strength is not possible. The only way it’s possible is to be filled with the Spirit of God, in accordance with the truth of God, and in obedience to the word of God, and in the power of God, we then walk as Jesus walked.
To be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ is to be sanctified here on earth, and then one day to be glorified with Him in heaven. That’s the purpose of the trials of life, to sanctify us for His purposes. Paul said in Rom. 8:28-30 “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”
That’s the lesson we need to learn from this passage; that Christ is the source of life because He is the author and finisher of our faith. He is the beginning and the end. What He has called us to do, He is able to make possible. But in doing so He often brings us through times of difficulty and trial, and though sometimes it seems to take forever, He is working in us that which is pleasing to Him, to bring about conformity to His Son, that we might be His representatives here on earth.
In closing, let me remind you of what I said at the beginning. The physical cannot produce the spiritual. In your natural state you cannot ascertain the things of God. You must be born of the Spirit of God to have spiritual life within you. Then once you are spiritual, the physical is empowered by the Spirit of God, so that we might do the works of God. The question I have for you is do you have life in the Spirit? Have you been born again by the Spirit of God? If not, then today I offer you the Bread of Life. Believe in Him and receive life.
And if you are saved, then I hope that you have come to know more completely the process of our spiritual life. That our purpose is to be conformed to the image of Christ, and to do the works of God, so that others may see our good works and glorify God. It’s not going to be easy, it’s going to mean swimming against the current, but God has a plan for you, Jesus is praying for you and interceding on your behalf, and He will come to you and help you if you will look to Him as captain of your soul. He is the source of our life, and the source of our strength, and He is ever ready to help us in time of need.
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