John 6:16-21

Thank you, Midstacy and Roger Dale. If you

have your Bible starting with me to John,

chapter six, what an important chapter in the

gospel of John's over active week. So we

take a break from Ephesians.

John 6 has some staggering verses in it. We're

not to the most staggering yet, but we're

working our

way there. As you know, it's not at all

uncommon to experience people who come into

the church and

profess faith in Christ and they stay for a

while, but at some point they leave, not only

the church,

but the Christian faith all together. I've

been a Christian long enough to see that

happen

more than once. In fact, the first person I

baptized has abandoned the faith all together

last I was told. Now, that's a hard reality in

the life of the church. The truth is that

there

have always been people who attach themselves

to Jesus and to the gospel, to the church,

to Christianity, who then later defect, desert

. They don't last. They do not persevere in the

faith once delivered to the saints. Jesus

himself said, whoever perseveres to the end

shall be saved. Now, a defector is a traitor.

That's a strong word. A defector is an apost

ate.

That's an even stronger word. There are plenty

of examples in both the Old and New Testament

where

we see this taking place and it is a sad

reality. You know well 1 John chapter 2 and

verse 19 that

speaks directly to this issue. You can look at

it on screen or following your Bible, 1 John 2

19.

They went out from us but they were not really

of us or if they had been of us they would

have

remained with us but they went out so that it

would be shown they are all are not of us.

And to quote my pastor Huey Moke, "Faith that

fizzles before the finish was faulty from the

first."

Same point. It's painful, right? Painful when

it happens in our circle of friends or church

members

when we we know people who for a time profess

ed interest in Christ and now they no longer do

that.

It's really painful when it turns out to be

our children and equally painful when it's a

spouse

who was once involved in the church and

professed an interest in Christ and now they

no longer do.

There will be defectors but we don't want to

aid and abet that, right?

And that's why we should always make sure to

be crystal clear about the difference between

a

true Christian and a false Christian between a

true disciple and a false disciple. And if it

's

sad to us, how sad do you think it is to God?

And we get an example of that with Jesus here

in John chapter 6. John 6 turns out to be one

of the saddest, most sorrowful places in all

of

Scripture and we will see the sorrow is so

great that we're going to find Jesus here in

this chapter

really leaning hard on divine sovereignty. In

tough times, that's what we do, don't we?

Think about it. When we can't understand life,

when we can't understand the

circumstances that are happening to us, we all

have that and we don't know why things have

gone the

way they have gone. When our children or our

grandchildren deeply disappoint us or trouble

comes our way in any form, we lean hard on the

sovereignty of God, don't we? I mean, like

Peter,

where else are we going to go, right? Well, we

go back to the confidence that God is

sovereign,

that He rules over everything, that God is in

charge and that ultimately there is nothing

that occurs outside of His purpose and His

will, absolutely nothing. The good things,

the bad things, and everything in between. And

here in John 6, we find Jesus in His

incarnation

leaning hard on the sovereignty of God. There

could never be a person ever as fascinating

as Jesus because, I mean, He's the one and

only God, truly God, truly man, one person.

He was tempted in all points like us and He we

pt. He wept when His friend died

and He created all things, including His

friend. He knew He was going to die. He knew

exactly the

moment He was going to die. And the Old

Testament describes the sadness of God over

man's spiritual

defection in many places. It's interesting in

Lamentations 211. Look where it says this,

"My eyes fail because of tears. My spirit is

deeply troubled. My heart is poured out on the

earth because of the destruction of the

daughter of my people when little ones and

infants faint

in the streets of the city." Wow. So if God we

eps over spiritual defection,

then that means you know that Jesus does too.

It causes Him deep sadness.

And in His incarnation, while He was here, He

leaned on the sovereignty of God. We could say

it

as R.C. does, touching His humanity to

maintain His composure as what's happening in

His ministry

and where He's heading to is daily becoming

more and more and more clear to Him. And we're

going

to see that in the verses ahead. And the issue

here is spiritual defection, spiritual apost

asy.

We see it at the end. Look at the end of this

sixth chapter in verse 66, a very sad verse.

It says, "As a result of this, many of His

disciples withdrew and were not walking with

Him anymore." Notice many. And then next in

verse 67, you can just feel the sadness of

Jesus in verse

67 when He says to the 12, "You do not want to

go away also, do you?" You can feel that.

This is really a very painful experience for

Jesus. He's the only perfect person,

perfect in compassion and grace and mercy. He

starts out this chapter as we saw, spending

the day

healing like every day. And then He performs

the amazing miracle of feeding 25,000 people,

which demonstrates not only His compassion for

the people, but His unparalleled power. And

then it

all ends with this defection, again, of many

of His followers that had ate the loaves and

the fishes.

They saw the miracle with their own eyes. And

then it goes right into chapter 7 in verse 1.

It was the first scene in chapter 7, verse 1,

the Jews seeking to kill Him, to murder Him.

And so this is really just a crushing,

heartbreaking chapter for Jesus and His

ministry.

And at the same time, it leads us to

understand that there are going to be,

throughout church history, have been and

always will be many false followers of Jesus.

And that's

really the crux of this chapter. It's all

about defective disciples. That's the

overarching theme

here. And what we're going to do here is

follow a set of points under the heading of

characteristics

of false discipleship. This chapter teaches us

the difference between a true and a false

follower of Jesus. It's a major issue, and

that's why 71 verses are given to this subject

in this

chapter for us to learn from. It's not lies to

assume that anybody who talks about Jesus

or attaches to Him in some kind of way, it's

not lies to automatically assume

that that person is a true follower. Now, you

want to give people the benefit of the doubt,

sure you do, but verse 66 introduces us to a

simple concept. It is possible to be a

disciple

who walks away from Jesus. And that is exactly

the word that is used there in verse 66. Look

at

it. Disciple. Look at it carefully. Many of

His disciples withdrew and were not walking

with Him

any more. Finality. They left. So this tells

us that that word, disciple, is a generic word

in

the Greek. It simply means a student, a

learner, which really doesn't tell you

anything about the

person other than they are there absorbing the

experience. And Jesus had many followers.

That's what rabbis had. Rabbis moved around

the countryside walking and teaching. They had

their little flock of people follow them

around listening to their words. That was

pretty common

in Jesus's day. But let me tell you something.

As I've tried to emphasize to you before, and

I

struggled to emphasize this correctly all the

way, nobody, nobody in that time ever had the

massive

crowds that Jesus did. Read your history books

. I mean, it's important to remember this.

You could be a disciple and it could be a

reality that you could be a true follower of

Jesus Christ.

Absolutely. But it could also mean nothing

more than the fact that you are interested in

Jesus

superficially, that you were less than genuine

. So a disciple could be a truly converted

person,

or a disciple could be an unsaved person, a

false follower of Jesus. So we move forward

now with

that groundwork laid and let's investigate

disciples, the real and the false. And as we

go, it would be

good for you to take a personal inventory of

yourself. Is this me? Where do I fit into this

subject matter? And let's start this theme

here. The characteristics, remember, of a

false disciple

with point number one. False disciples are

attracted by the crowd. That's a trait that

they have. And it's good to start by

remembering where we are in the flow of the

gospel of John.

We are well into the earthly ministry of Jesus

at this time. He has been performing just

amazing

jaw-dropping miracles and in so doing, he has

literally, literally been accumulating masses

of crowds of thousands upon thousands of

people. We saw last time we were here in John,

25,000

people at one time would not be in exagger

ation. Jesus at this point is by far, by far

the most

popular person in Galilee. In fact, he's the

most popular person in all of Israel out of

anybody that lived in that area. And you have

to understand, just try to put yourself back

into that time. No electricity, no TV, no

internet, none of that. Nothing. Okay. In that

area, during

those days, Jesus was the event of their lifet

imes. You get me? I mean, it was the big deal.

Okay?

No person in any of those families prior to

Jesus coming ever saw a single miracle, not

one.

None of the grandparents had, none of the

great grandparents had. In fact,

many generations had gone by up until this

point without anybody seeing, experiencing a

single

miracle. And now you have this man going

around the countryside and he's doing them

many times a

day on a daily basis. Just, wow, every time

you turn around, he's doing another one.

So when you see him here in this gospel, and

you see the Bible say, "In a large crowd,

follow him."

When you see that, it's just a picture in your

mind, thousands of people. I mean, the only

thing

that comes to mind with that many people

outside is a Trump rally. You've seen the

pictures of the

Trump rallies with the thousands, and as far

as back as you can see, you see heads in the

people.

Now, not comparing Jesus and Trump, get that

straight. The crowd is what I'm talking about,

right? But think about that. 2000 years ago,

how would you draw a crowd that big? It could

be

that the miracles, there was just no possible

way that they could be faked. Now, these

crowds

are steadily getting bigger. And let's think

about the drawing of a crowd for a minute,

from a normal human perspective. Think about,

we're fixing to soon not have any malls,

but we still have a mall. Think about if you

're walking through the mall. And if you're

walking

through the mall, and you see even a small

crowd gathered around something, and you can't

see what's

going on in around that small crowd, even if

you can't see it, at first, it's very natural

for you

to wonder, what's going on inside there, and

people gathered around whatever's going on in

there.

Now, I'm an oddball guy. You know, Christie

can tell you if she takes me shopping, and I

see that,

I'm just walking right past it to get to the

objective, but that's just me. The natural

human

nature wants to know what's going on in there.

And then, so you attach yourself to that

little group

to kind of see what's going on inside of there

, and you become the next layer. And then

others

begin, right, to add to that layer too. And

then eventually, you get in there and you kind

of figure

out, well, what's going on? Well, that's the

same way it started with Jesus at first. And

then as the

word spread, he kept doing these miracles, and

those layers of people just kept getting

bigger,

and bigger, and bigger, and they would go home

and they would tell others who weren't there,

you've got to see this, you can't believe what

I saw today, and he's going to be over there

tomorrow,

and let's go over there, and I want to see it

again, and you need to see it too, right? That

's

just human nature. And really, it's a bit

dangerous, even in those days, as Jesus gets

to this level

of popularity, especially when the crowd is

drawing is based on the pretense of

supernatural power.

And Jesus is healing people. I think about

that. People are sick, people have real

physical problems,

and human beings can get quite emotional and

impatient in that kind of circumstance, right?

I want to get healed, right? Get out my way.

And I'm sure they had some issues that just

aren't

written down for us to know about that went on

in that kind of deal, but here's my point.

Crowds attract crowds. I think about the meg

achurches that we have here in America.

As they grow, pretty soon, what happens? Well,

one church isn't enough. Then they have to

start

another campus branch, right, of that church,

and then they're doing live feeds from the

main church

on the TV screen and the other campus church

to the other churches. And what's getting all

the

people there? What's drawing the people there

in these numbers? Well, first, from the

practical

human perspective, what draws those people is

the same thing that drew you to the crowd in

the mall

that I just spoke about. When you don't know

what's going on and you see the crowd

going and you say, "There's got to be

something. There's got to be some energy in

there. There's

got to be some action or activity in there.

There's got to be something that's happening

in that

building that is attracting all these people.

That's normal human nature." And that is what

initially attracts, on the basis of that

reason, false followers. Now, don't get me

wrong.

It can attract true followers. It can. People

may get converted. It happens. But it's a

guarantee

on just the basis of that to attract false

followers. You see? Now, you can look at it

from

the flip side. Let's take us, for example.

This coming March, if the Lord doesn't return,

makes

15 years that we have been a church. And we

came here to this building with less people

than the first day we started. And we now have

less people than the first day that we started

.

So we're not exactly trending over 15 years to

make a church status, right? Let's just be

honest. I mean, we got maybe, what, 15 cars in

the parking lot and inside the building here,

we got traditional hymns and a long-winded exp

ository preacher. Now, this, unless God does

a miracle, which he can, more than likely we

're not ever going to attract a mega-sized

crowd.

That's not to say God can't do it. I'm not

saying that. Listen to me good. Next week, we

could be

needing to open a door and there'll be people

all out there in the backyard. But practically

speaking,

after 15 years, I think it would be safe to

say that the mega-church status ship has

sailed.

Okay? Let's just be honest about that. The

only thing, my point is, that will ever

attract people

here to our church will be an interest in and

a love for what we do. How we worship. How we

preach

and teach the Word of God. And that's not at

all a bad thing, right? I mean, we don't mind

it,

right? Or else you wouldn't be here, right?

But this is just another way to demonstrate to

you

from the flip side that a crowd attracts a

crowd. Well, when people pass by, let's say

journey

church, we're all familiar with that church on

Greenville Springs Road and they're driving

down

Greenville Springs Road and they see a sheriff

's deputy on Sunday morning having to direct

traffic

off of Greenville Springs just to get people

into the parking lot of that church.

Most of the time, they're going to want to

know, well, what in the world is going on in

that building?

What's going on in that church rather than

what's happening with the little church with

15 cars in

the parking lot? I mean, it's human nature.

But my bigger point is this. What's popular

is a very simple starting point for false

discipleship. On that basis, you understand

what I'm saying,

people are attracted simply to the activity,

to the numbers. When one of these mega church

pastors hits the big time, what do they do?

They got books, TV, there's a whole image

created about

the person that draws false followers to that

crowd. There's an energy in that crowd. There

's

an enthusiasm in that crowd. It all draws. It

's happening all the time in our country.

As one of my favorite pastors, Kerry Kimbrell

used to say, "What you win them with, you win

them to."

So whatever you got going in there, on in

there that wins them in, that's what you win

them to.

Now, secondly, false followers are fascinated

by the supernatural. You can draw a crowd with

a

football game, sure you can. We will, Saturday

in the dome there, half a century will be at

that game,

but that's not supernatural. But if you start

saying, hey, God is over here,

well, God will change your life. If you come

to this service, this is a supernatural event.

And if you come, God may heal you. He may

change your career. He may change your

economics.

It might be the time for your breakthrough

financially in your life. And that's very

attractive for people who are hurting

financially or just being caught up in the

mundane air

of normal everyday life. And that's what

happened in the text we looked at last time,

remember?

Jesus creates food out of thin air. It was a

real supernatural power display beyond

imagination.

And the people, of course, were absolutely

spellbound and fascinated by this miracle. And

it says,

repeatedly in the New Testament, again and

again and again, they were drawn by the signs

and the wonders just simply on that basis. And

we know, because we live here, life is hard

for everybody. It was way harder than in many

ways. And we talked about that, just talking

about the physical things. There was no

Walmart. You had to make the food happen every

day.

But it's still hard now. We just have

different kinds of problems, right?

You look at the huge crowds of the TV preach

ers. And I want you to really consider what you

're

hearing from these guys and then think about

reality. Life can be painfully mundane.

Relationships

can be awfully tough. I mean, most families

are a mess. Disappointments and dysfunction ab

ound.

And then here comes this preacher with a big

crowd.

And he's talking about in the name of Jesus.

And what's he offering? Well, he's offering

you a better temporal life. Just listen to any

of their sermons. It's always the same basis.

An abundant life, health, wealth, and

happiness. Or if that's not your deal,

satisfaction, fulfillment,

meaning, and purpose, and get out of debt

while you're at it. No more debt for you.

I mean, today they don't even have to do an

actual miracle. They just

dangle that man-centered carrot out there. And

I can tell you, it's going to attract

a crowd, even though none of it's true what

they're peddling. Remember Simon Magus in Acts

?

He wanted to buy that out. He wanted to buy

with money the supernatural power of the Holy

Spirit.

And what did Peter tell him? "Your money

perish with you." He said, "Oh, Simon strike

that day."

But folks, that's what people want today. They

want to buy that supernatural power. So what

do they do? "Let me sow my seed, and maybe I

can get it too." It doesn't matter what it is,

whether it's meaning, and purpose, and

fulfillment, or finances, you can go down the

list. All temporal.

That's why religion flourishes the way it does

, all over the planet, from the wealthiest

countries

to the most impoverished. Have you ever

thought about, how does the prosperity gospel

work in Africa?

Well, it's because the terms are different. We

're looking for the big bank account and the

huge 401(k) and the vacation. They're just

looking for running water, and a cow or

whatever to eat.

The same thing. You get there the same way.

And that is always a perfect environment

to attract false disciples, drawn by a crowd

to start with, and then fascinated with the

thought

of supernatural power that can change my

condition that I'm living in. Healing, social,

economic,

take your pick. That leads us to number three.

They think only of the earthly benefits.

Remember,

after the feeding of the 5,000, here in this

chapter in verse 14, "Therefore, when the

people

saw the sign which he performed, they said, '

This is truly the prophet who has come from the

world.'"

Remember, that's from Deuteronomy 18, where

Moses said, "A prophet like him was going to

come greater."

That's a messianic prophecy in Deuteronomy.

And so, hey, think about those people. This is

great.

They're now starting to attach Jesus with Old

Testament prophecy. But what was Jesus

preaching when he was preaching? The Gospels

are clear. He was preaching the kingdom of God

,

not temporal benefits. Now, what's the kingdom

? Now, that's a multifaceted answer. And I've

been

over that with you a million times. So, I'm

not going to go down all the different, you

know,

the kingdom and the universe and all that. Oh,

I just want to zoom in on one thing.

Remember when Jesus said, "My kingdom is not

of this world?" Let's zoom in on that.

When Jesus preached in the kingdom in that

verse, it tells us he wasn't talking about

anything to do with the earthly temporal life.

He wasn't talking about, in that instance, the

here and the now. He wasn't even talking there

about the political issues they were facing

with

Rome. He wasn't talking about social justice

for the Jews in that instance, but when he was

talking

about the kingdom in that instance, he was

talking about the eternal kingdom of God over

which God

rules and reigns in the lives of those that he

has redeemed, those who have repented of their

sins

and believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and have

been saved. He's preaching the kingdom. He's

healing

diseases. He's creating food out of thin air

and then looking verse 15. "And Jesus perce

iving,

they were intending to come," and look at this

, "take him by force and make him a king." Now,

I want you to notice what they didn't do in

that verse. They didn't fall down and worship

him,

right? It doesn't say they repented and

believed. They wanted to take him by force and

make him

a king because all they could think about were

the earthly benefits that would come to them

as a result of him being their king. Hey, we

want our independence from Rome. We want all

the Romans

out here. We want food. This is really some

good food you made here. Jesus is very tasty,

never tasted

anything like this, and we would like it all

the time for free. They knew his power could

be repeated.

They'd seen it. They wanted it strongly. They

wanted actually to take him by force,

they literally to kidnap Jesus and make him be

their king. Still to this day, there has never

been anyone like him. And they're all out

there thinking, "Man, we can't let this guy

get out of

our grip. We can't let him get out of our

hands. I mean, he can create utopia for us,

feed us all

the time, run out all our enemies, heal all

our diseases, and by the way, he can chase the

demons

away too." And this is the characteristic of

all disciples. They only think of the earthly

benefits.

I want you to go watch some TV preachers. 99%

of the time, you will find that they are not

preaching

salvation from the wrath of God and the

forgiveness of all your sins, right? Pay

attention to what

they're saying. Financial increase, what they

're saying. Physical healing, freedom from

depression,

anxiety, and family dysfunction. Just go down

the list. Everything is always all temporal.

It's all about the here and the now, and that

is what a false disciple is all about.

Now, all of that finally gets us to our text

for today. Y'all ready to get to the text?

We're going to look at verses 16 to 21, and

here we find the fourth characteristic of a

false disciple. They have no desire for

worship. Now, to get the whole full story of

this account

in full, you need to take Matthew and Mark and

John and pull them all together to get the

full

picture, and that's what we're going to do.

But first, let's look at what John says here.

Look at verse 16. Now, when evening came, his

disciples went down to the sea, and Jesus sent

them there because remember last time in verse

15, he withdrew again to the mountain by

himself alone.

Remember that? So they go back down to the

boat they came over in, and that boat probably

belonged

to one of them. At least seven of those guys

were fishermen, so they were very familiar

with this

body of water. Verse 17, "And after getting

into a boat, they started to cross the sea to

Capernaum.

It had already become dark, and Jesus had not

yet come to them." Now, the fullest picture,

other writers tell us they go a little ways to

Bethesda, and they wait there for a short

while,

but they're probably thinking in their minds

Jesus is going to be walking down to meet them

there

at the shoreline, and then he's going to get

in the boat with them, and they're going to go

across to Capernaum, which is on the northwest

shore across the lake. But guess what? Jesus

doesn't

come. He doesn't show up, so they leave, and

they start to go across in the little boat

to Capernaum. Look, verse 17, "It had already

become dark, and Jesus had not yet come to

them."

And then we get to verse 18. It says, "The sea

began to be stirred up,

because a strong wind was blowing." Now, it

uses the word "sea," but remember this is just

a big

lake, is really what it is. It's about 700

feet below sea level, but it's ringed on three

sides

by mountains that rise several thousand feet

into the air. So you can imagine that it would

be like

a whirlpool with the wind. When the winds came

from the east pouring down those mountains and

hit

that cold water, it would turn that lake into

a cauldron. And then there were winds from the

north

and still are to this day from the peaks of

what they call, the Bible calls, the cedars of

Leviton,

which would come down. So you got these cold

winds and these collision of winds in the rav

ines and

valleys and these deep and these narrow gorges

between the hills, and it just literally turns

this lake surrounded on three sides by

mountains into a big boiling pot when a storm

came about and

these winds came through here. There would be

whitecaps and waves like you would see on the

ocean

if you've ever been on Lake Marapa in a storm

or you go down to Lake Verret. Man, you think

you're

in the middle of the Atlantic sometime in Lake

Verret, right? And this made for a dangerous

situation and that's what we find here in

verse 18. Now remember, as many as seven of

these guys

had fished this lake very routinely and even

though for sure they had been through this

experience before in a little wooden boat with

the winds and the waves, it's like the

bearing straight in this little lake, it still

caused anybody to become panic. Have you ever

been in the boat in a thunderstorm? I have.

Let me tell you, I've been in a small boat in

the

Gulf of Mexico more than once when a storm squ

all came up and the boat is not only going up

and

down, it's going up and down and side to side

and it's a scary situation. Now chron

ologically,

this had already happened to them earlier

before when Jesus' member was sleeping the

boat, remember

that? And he got up and peed me still and

everything got still, just twilight song,

right? What did they

say? What kind of man is this? Even the winds

and waves obey his voice. I mean, they at that

point

are still trying to process who in the world

is this that we find ourselves with. Verse 19

starts

out with, "Then when they had rode out about

three or four miles," now you think, well man,

it's pretty good progress until you compare

with Matthew, who tells us it was the fourth

night, a watch of the night, that's between 3

a.m. and 6 a.m. So they've been going all

night

and they've only gotten three or four miles.

That's not good. Matthew also tells us that

the

boat was already a long distance from the land

and so you know what that lets us know? They

've

done gotten pushed by the wind out into the

middle of this lake because they would have

normally

wanted to stay pretty close to the shore. So

imagine the scene. They're out in the middle

of the lake,

pitch dark. There is no light pollution and it

's storming. The wind is howling against their

face,

hair flying straight back, maybe thunder and

lightning are the only peels of light in the

middle of the pitch black darkness of the

middle of this lake and it's somewhere between

3 a.m.

and 6 a.m. in the morning and in the middle of

the chaos. Look what it says next. Just try to

and picture this boat rocking up and down

these waves. It's storming. It's wind. It's

rain. Verse 19,

"They saw Jesus walking on the sea and drawing

near to the boat and they were frightened."

If you don't think you would be frightened at

that site, you're just not being honest with

yourself.

Matthew 14, 26 says, "When the disciples saw

him walking on the sea," that means he's

walking on

top of them waves. Because it's still raging

at this point. "They were terrified and said

it is a

ghost and they cried out in fear." And then in

John 6, 20 back to our text, "But he said to

them,

'It is I do not be afraid.'" And Matthew 14,

27, it says, "But immediately Jesus spoke to

them saying,

take courage. It is I do not be afraid." And

then Matthew goes on to give us a little more

info

than John does. And he says next in Matthew 14

, 28, it says next, "Peter said to him, 'Lord,

if it is you, command me to come to you on the

water.'" Now, I don't know why Peter asked

that.

I mean, was he still trying to figure out if

this was a ghost or not? Like, is he thinking

like he

would recognize Jesus' voice? So he said, "

Command me to come." Maybe so. I mean, Peter

said a lot of

dumb things like I do on a regular basis, but

then look verse 29. And he said, "Come." And

Peter got out

of the boat and walked on the water and came

toward Jesus. Verse 30, "But seeing the wind,

he became frightened and beginning to sink."

He cried out, "Lord, save me." So at least at

this point,

he knows who it is out there and it's walking

on the water and he starts out walking on the

water.

And I'm sure that freaked him out as he was in

the process of doing it, right? And then as he

's

doing it, he starts noticing, "Man, this is a

serious storm I'm in. I'm walking on top of

waves,

it's crashing all around me." And then he gets

scared and he starts to sink. Verse 31, "Im

mediately

Jesus stretched out his hand and took hold of

him and said to him, 'You of little faith,

why did you doubt?" Verse 32, "When they got

into the boat." Oh, it's just the statements

in the Bible.

The wind stopped. Again, we're back to that

scene when Jesus was in the boat.

You can't imagine, I guess maybe in a movie,

you might have seen it at some point in a

movie,

but just, you know, the wind just blowing and

howling all of a sudden, silence,

lake still in an instant. But then next, I

want you to notice the difference in the

reaction

from the last time they were all in a storm

together. Remember last time they said, "What

manner of man is this?" But this time, verse

33, "And those who were in the boat worshiped

him,

saying, 'You are certainly God's Son.'"

Another evidence of the deity of Jesus Christ

that he is

God, you only worship God. This time they

worshiped him. That, folks, is true disciples

hip. Now,

go back to John 6, verse 21, "And they were

willing to receive him into the boat." Now,

I just want you to think about the explosion

of miracles that we've just witnessed. Number

one,

they're still alive. Number two, Jesus is

walking on the water. Number three, Peter

is walking on the water. They're seeing Peter

walk on the water. Number four,

Peter sinks and he's pulled back up to walk on

the water. And then number five, Jesus stopped

the

wind. But he's not doing. Oh, watch this in

verse 21. Remember, they're in the middle of

the lake

and immediately the boat was at the land to

which they were going. Immediately the boat

went from

way out in the lake in the blink of an eye to

where they were going at the dock at Capernaum

.

You talk about Mr. Toad's wild ride? Can you

imagine being in that boat and you're out in

the

middle of the lake and then bam, there you are

at the dock? That's a huge moment for these

guys

because now there's just absolutely no doubt

who they're dealing with.

This is who he claimed to be. He is the Son of

God. He's in control of nature. He's in

control of

creation and what sets true disciples apart

more than anything else from the false is true

worship of the King. It's all about declaring

him to be the Son of God and bowing down to

worship

the King. Well, what about the false followers

? Well, we've learned today they're drawn by

the

crowd, fascinated by the supernatural,

interested only in the earthly benefits and

they have no

desire at all to truly bow down and worship

King Jesus. They will not have King Jesus to

rule over

their life. That's what they have in common.

So all of that really gets us out of the gates

in marking out a false disciple and we're

going to go deeper into this the next time

we are in the Gospel of John. Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for today and

there is just absolutely nothing better in

Scripture than to return once again

to the life of Jesus and the things that took

place in his life with him and the apostles

and everything having to do with his time on

this earth. It is the greatest story ever told

.

Lord, we thank you today that if we know you

savingly, we understand it from the

perspective

of truth. I pray no one here today is

attracted to Jesus by anything other than a

desire to truly

worship him as God and Savior and King and we

thank you for the ability to do that today

freely in your house and we pray that

everything we have done as always has brought

you all the

glory this day. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

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