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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