Called to Follow: A Savior for the Uncertain

Chapter 6, and also in the beginning of Matthew, or in the middle of Matthew chapter 12, these three accounts, all of the same event following the feeding of the 5,000. I'm going to read our text from Mark, and then we'll pray, and then we'll dive into it. Immediately, he made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. And after he had taken leave of them, he went up on the mountain to pray, and when evening came, the boat was out on the sea, and he was alone on the land. And when he saw that they were making headway painfully, for the wind was against them, and about the fourth watch of the night, he came to them walking on the sea. He meant to pass by them, but when they saw him walking on the sea,

they thought it was a ghost and cried out, for they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, "Take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid." And he got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased, and they were utterly astonished. For they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened." This is the word of the Lord. Let's go ahead and pray before we dive into this text this morning. Father in heaven, I thank you for Jesus, and I thank you for the call to follow him, even if it leads us into those places of struggle and those places where it might seem like the future is uncertain for us. And so I ask this morning that you would help us to see our Savior clearly, that you would help us to put our hope in him. It is in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.

So nobody, maybe you are, and the one exception to this rule, but I don't think anybody likes to be uncertain. Nobody likes to hear the answer to the question that they have just asked me, "I don't know." And I was thinking about this this past week because our kids had used some of their birthday gift cards to order things, and I was thinking about how different it was from when I was a kid. So when I was a kid, I didn't order things very often like we do so frequently now, but the way it worked is generally you filled out an order form, you sent in a check that you had to get from your mom or dad, and you sent it in the mail. You had no idea how long it took to get there, no idea how long it took to process, and no idea about how long it took for that item to arrive back to you. And so by the time your hopes had been up and then you had given up hope, one day you came home from school,

right there in the middle of the kitchen table was this package, and you just sort of had no idea and no certainty about when it was going to arrive. Now you contrast that with today, specifically with Amazon, it sends you a little notification when they're 10 stops away, and you can watch the little dot move through your neighborhood and go out on your front steps, see them driving down the street as they pull in and receive your package. Our kids live in a very different world in terms of shipping. None of us really like to be uncertain about things. And when uncertainty comes into our life, there are times where we simply shut down. If you remember, Jesus tells a parable about different servants who have been given different amounts of talents, and the guy who has been given the least amount of talents, one talent, in his uncertainty about what would happen if that talent doesn't perform and how the king

would come to him. He takes the talent and he hides it. When the king says, "Why?" He says, "Why?" He was simply afraid. Afraid of the uncertainty. However, also, uncertainty not only can sort of cause us to shut down, but it can have the opposite effect. And so sometimes we just simply leap into just sort of frantic action, right? I need to be ready, and I need to be prepared, and what if this happens? I need to have a plan for that, and a contingency for this. And it's almost as if in our uncertainty, we try to do everything all at once, preparing for everything, but also really not preparing for anything at all. Not in a focused, purposeful way, but just sort of frenzied action. And the problem is, is that as much as we don't like uncertainty, we do live in a world of uncertainty.

And the good news that I want you to see this morning, is in the uncertainty of everything that surrounds us, we have a Savior who is certain. So I want to go to this account, and it's not very many verses, and it's not very long, and most of the time we spend our time in this talking about Jesus and Peter in Matthew chapter 12, but I just want us this morning to focus on Jesus and what He's doing and what He has done for the disciples as they walk through this moment in this storm. And I want to start by talking about how Jesus is our Savior, even in the uncertainty of emotion. Our emotions, I think probably most of us know, can change. Sometimes they change quickly, and sometimes they change slowly over time.

There's times where I have gone to bed, and I am tired, and I am frustrated, and it feels like everything is bad, and I'm fearful. And you go to bed, and you get a really good night's sleep, and you wake up in the morning and have breakfast and a cup of coffee, and you realize that things aren't nearly as dark as they had felt the night before. And that's a simple example, but what we find is often how we feel changes depending upon our circumstances, depending upon how we are feeling in terms of our health, or in terms of our sleep, or in terms of how we are eating. And this is not just true of bad emotions. This isn't just true of difficult emotions, but it's true of those joyful emotions too, right? Our feelings change. You get done with the fun museum, or the theme park, or the exciting thing, and then what do you do? You exit through the gift shop, and you're there in the gift shop, and you've just

had an amazing time, and you've made some wonderful memories, and next thing you know, you're in your car wondering how you spent all of your money on stuff the kids have already broken. Emotions change from one moment to the next. From darkness and discouragement, our feelings sometimes change. From joy and excitement, and just this desire to do everything all at once, our emotions sometimes change. We see this in the very beginning of the text. Immediately, he made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side of Bethsaida while he dismissed the crowd. And Jesus here very quickly and sort of very sternly sends his disciples to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. This picture of he made his disciples. This is not Jesus suggesting it's time for them to go

or giving them the option to go. It's almost as if he grabs them by their shoulders, walks them to the boat, and goes, "Guys, get in the boat. It's time to go to the other side of the sea." And Jesus here is not simply being nice, right? I'll clean up dinner. You guys head home, get some rest. It's been a crazy couple days for you. There is something else going on in this text. He made his disciples get into the boat. There's a lot that's been happening with Jesus's disciples. They've gone out on their first solo preaching tour. John the baptizer has been killed by Herod. Jesus has just fed the 5,000. The crowds are constant. And the disciples have been through probably just about every emotion. In the verses that come before this, in Mark chapter 6, Jesus has sent them out on their first

solo preaching tour. And the apostles returned to Jesus and told Him all that they had done and taught. And He said to them, "Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest for a while. For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure to even eat." This is a hectic and chaotic season. And they have no time to talk to Jesus, no time to share their joys or ask their questions. And so Jesus tells them, "Come away into the wilderness. We'll go and spend some time refreshing and being recharged." And the crowd follows them. And then in His compassion, Jesus feeds the 5,000. He looks at them and says, "They're sheep without a shepherd." And the crowds began to put two and two together. And they say of Jesus, "This guy can heal people. He can also feed everybody. We hate the Romans. Maybe this guy should be

our King." And so there has been a lot happening in terms of what is going on and in the busyness. And in this moment, John tells us that Jesus, perceiving they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him a King, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by Himself. And it's likely that in this moment where all of the crowds are so excited that Jesus heals, Jesus feeds, Jesus leads, Jesus teaches, and the disciples, having come back for their first solo preaching journey, feeling the excitement and joy of all of this, get caught up in the fervor of the crowd that says, "We want to make Jesus our King." In fact, we get a glimpse of the fact the disciples do understand from Mark chapter 6 and verse 52, "For they did not understand about the loaves," this is right after the feeding of the 5,000, "and in the boat, but their hearts were hardened." Right before you find that they're astonished, but it seems like they don't understand. And when it says their hearts were hardened, there's a couple ways biblically your hearts can be hard. It can be hard because of continual sin, sort of calloused, that you don't feel the pain of sin

and the regret and remorse. Or it can be hardened like Pharaoh, where you're so focused on your own desires that it doesn't matter what happens externally, you're set in your decision that you're not going to let God's people go. But there's another way in which we can be hardened. We can be hardened in our understanding. If you've ever talked to somebody or tried to explain to somebody, and it just doesn't seem like it clicks, no matter how you're explaining it, this is a little bit of what's happening with the disciples. Our habits can become ingrained that we can't do anything in any other way. So something simple to give you an example of this, I drink a lot of coffee, some would say maybe too much, and I always put my cream in my coffee before I drink it. Maybe the one exception is at a restaurant where they bring you a full cup of coffee and some creamer, sometimes I'll put some in, but in generally, my habit is,

if I have a full cup of coffee and there's no cream already in the cup, I generally just drink my coffee black. And the reason that happens is years and years ago, I read an article and it was debating, should you put your cream in first or should you put your cream in second? And scientifically, it's just better to do it first, right? So I just want to do it the right way. And over time, that has become so ingrained to me as a habit, I don't think about even doing it anything else. My actions are so habitual, it's just the way that I am. And this is a little bit of what has happened to the disciples. For all of their lives, they have seen the promised Messiah as one who would come and save them politically. And how long does it take them to shift this thinking? Even after Jesus has died and has been raised and has spent three months teaching them throughout the Old Testament, right before he ascends into heaven, they go,

"Is now the time you're going to politically restore the kingdom?" So their hearts have been habitually set on a king, and it's ingrained. And it's not changing easily or quickly, and now their emotions are running high, so high, I think, that as these people say, "Jesus would be a great king," the disciples are over there going, "Yeah, he absolutely would be a great king, and we'd be some great guys to be with the great king." And Jesus grabs them by the shoulders and goes, "Get in the boat, and go to the other side." I want you to understand it's not bad to be caught up in excitement. But sometimes in those moments of high emotion, we don't always make the best decision. And in the uncertainty of the disciples' emotions in this moment, where everyone is trying to make Jesus king, Jesus knows what's best. And he directs them to

go where they need to go. What you find is then the scene changes in Mark chapter six. And after he had taken leave of them, he went up on the mountain to pray. Very quickly, Jesus prays regularly. He prays very frequently. And in fact, if you move through the Gospels before every major event in his life, from his temptation, to the choosing of the disciples, to the transfiguration, where in his glory he is revealed to Peter, James, and John, to the cross in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prays. And in the middle of the struggle, we'll see of his disciples, Jesus is praying. And what is happening while Jesus is praying, the disciples are all alone and things don't seem to be going. Wow. And so we've moved from this sort of uncertainty of emotion where the disciples in this moment aren't thinking the way they should, and Jesus being a savior of certainty goes, "Get in the boat." We now move to the uncertainty of struggle. Here's what you need to know about the Sea of Galilee.

Because of the terrain and the fact that this sea or this large lake sits so low, and some of the mountains around it are as high as 4,000 feet, what happens is water holds the heat. And so you have sort of warm air over the water, and mountains have air that is cooling and rushing down to the sea, and so you would get these very big, very frequent, sometimes very surprising storms over the lake. And we're not talking about a little pond. This is sort of a pear-shaped body of water that is about 13 miles long, and at its widest point, 8 miles wide. The disciples are crossing this lake, likely at one of the wider points, and they've been at this for a while. John 6 says that they have been rowing, not sailing with the wind, not gently sort of zooming over the water under the power of the wind, picturesque sailboat.

They have been rowing for the past three to four miles. And in Matthew 14 and Mark 6, it says it is the fourth watch of the night. So it's sometime after 3 a.m. And it's quite possible that this three or four miles has taken them nine hours to accomplish, right? We could do this faster on foot. And in the wind and in the waves and in the storm and exerting effort to row this boat, they have made very little progress. Just enough progress to get them too far away to be rescued in the middle of the night. And our most common question in the middle of trips, it seems, is, are we there yet? How much longer is it going to be? Are we going to be there soon? And I think it's safe to say, after nine hours of rowing and making it four miles, they are struggling.

Matthew 14 says it this way, "But the boat by this time was a long way from land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them." And in the midst of the struggle, Mark says this, "He saw," this is Jesus, "They were making headway painfully, for the wind was against them." And notice in the midst of the struggle that Jesus sees them. He's not absent. In fact, there is so much to unpack here, that as Jesus is on the mountain praying, he looks down, and through the storm, he sees the struggle of the apostles in this boat, rowing with all of their might, not going forward, but also not going backward, just stuck in the middle of the lake. In those two words, he saw. Right? Jesus is not absent. He sees their struggle and he does not abandon them. I want to talk to us a little bit about this last phrase where it says he meant to pass them by. Is Jesus, as he comes to this boat full of the struggling disciples rowing with all their might, is he sort

of showing off for them, walking by going, "Hey guys, get that boat to shore. Row a little harder." Kind of making fun of them. I don't think that's what Jesus is doing. This may be written from the disciples' perspective as they see Jesus coming, and he's probably coming across at an angle, and they think, "Oh, he's going to go right." Whoever that is, they don't know at this point, he's going to go right in front of us. That may be what it means when it says he meant to pass them by. It might simply be sharing the direction of Jesus in the same way that maybe we go home from somewhere a different way, and I say, "Hey, let's swing past the milkshake place," right? Then he says, "We're going to go by there, or we might as well stop." It may be a picture of Jesus going past them and stopping as he gets to them. And those things might be true, but there's something bigger. Jesus in passing

by, and in this phrase that Mark uses, he meant to pass them by, it's a very intentional, very clear demonstration of who Jesus truly is. Job, as he, in the beginning chapters, begins to unpack his struggles and his complaints and his hurts about God to his friends, he says this in Job 9:8, he speaks of God, "Who alone," meaning there's nobody else, "stretched out the heavens and trampled or walks upon the waves of the sea." Job says there's only one who walks upon the water, and it is God, and he is the one who stretched it out the heavens. Now Job goes on in this very sort of discouraging, heartbreaking way because he's in the middle of tragedy, and Job says this in verse 11, "Behold, he passes me by, and I see him not. He moves on, but I do not perceive him." Job says God is strong enough and great enough that he can trample the waves, but he's passed on by me. The disciples do see Jesus, but it's more than this reference to Job. Think about how God reveals his glory to Moses. Moses says, "I want to see your glory." And if you remember what

happens in Exodus 32, God takes Moses and puts him in a cleft or sort of an inward part of the rock and covers him with his hand. And God says, "And while my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft of the rock until I have passed by." Think about how God reveals himself to Elijah in the midst of his discouragement. He says to Elijah, "Go stand up on the mountain before the Lord, and the Lord will pass by." And you'll see a wind that tears the mountain. But God was not in the wind, and you see an earthquake, and God was not in the earthquake. And then there's fire, but God is not in the fire, but rather the whisper or the still small voice. The word that Mark uses in Mark chapter six, when he says Jesus passes by, that word in Greek, when they translate the Old Testament from Hebrew to Greek, the word Mark uses for passes by is the exact same word that Job uses in Job chapter nine. It's the same word that Moses uses, used of Moses in the book of Exodus. He's in the rock. It's the same word used in first Kings 19.

As Elijah waits for the presence of God to pass by. And what we find is Mark is making a very clear allusion. In this moment, when he says Jesus was meant to pass them by. To what happens in Job, to what happens in Exodus, and what happens in Kings to Elijah. Jesus is not ignoring them, but he's demonstrating something wonderful about his identity. Right? He's the one who walks on water. The one that Job speaks about in the storm and the waves. The glory that Moses desires. And the small voice that Elijah needs. It is Jesus. And here we are in the uncertainty of the storm. No progress. No end in sight. No easy way out. And Jesus sees you. Even when, like Job, we're going, "I wouldn't recognize him if he walked right by me." I want you to know that in the struggle of the storm, Jesus sees you, he teaches you, and he is with you. Even when we feel like Job, saying, "I wouldn't see him if he walked right by me." And it may not always feel this way for us, but it is what is happening. That God is with us in the storm.

We've seen the uncertainty of our situations, we've seen the uncertainty of our struggle, and now we see the uncertainty of fear. But when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost. And they cried out, and they all saw him and were terrified, but immediately he spoke to them and said, "Take heart, it is I, do not be afraid." We're afraid of things that are unfamiliar or maybe we don't understand, and this is especially true at night, right? Sounds are scarier, things are less easily explained, we can't see as clearly, and so in the darkness, we are oftentimes more easily frightened than we would be in the middle of the light. And here comes a guy walking on water, and we know who this is, but the disciples do not. All they know is that they have been struggling against this storm for what seems like forever, and they are rowing, and they're rowing, and they still can't see the land, and they look back, and they can't see the land.

All they can feel is the wind pushing them, and they know that if it pushes them, it's going to take them where they don't want to go, and so they're fighting against this, and all of a sudden, this guy just comes walking across the water. We know it's Jesus. They don't. And they go, "Well, it's a ghost." You say, "Well, that's silly." But what other explanation do you have? A guy in robes comes walking across the water that its deepest is 200 feet deep, and you're going to go, "We don't have a category for this." Look what Jesus says to those in the uncertainty. We don't know who that is, what it is. We don't know what's happening. We're struggling. Jesus says, "Take heart. It is I. Do not be afraid." Another way of translating this word "take heart" is to take courage. To be filled up with courage because good things are happening.

Or it's elsewhere translated, "Be of good cheer." To bring into your life cheer and to joy. Jesus uses it elsewhere. Man lowered through the ceiling. They'll say, "Take heart. Your sins are forgiven." The crowd, as Jesus walks through Jericho, and he calls out to the blind man, "Take heart. He's calling you. There's hope." Jesus, in the upper room, when he says, "Take heart. Do not be afraid." That in hope and in forgiveness and in fear and in struggle and in uncertainty, Jesus says, "I'm right here. I'm with you. Take courage and be of good cheer." And in Mark 6:51, there is this remarkable verse. He says this, "And he got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased, and they were utterly astounded." Do you see what's happening? The one who walks, the one who feeds, the one who heals, the one who calls you is with you. You're not alone. One of the best antidotes to fear is to not face it by yourself, to have someone with you. Think about it in those small, awkward moments of life where it's always better to have someone with you to share that struggle and that hurt or that awkwardness

or that fear. Jesus takes your uncertainty in how you feel. He takes your uncertainty in your struggle. The fear that comes to you is it feels like you're stuck. And he comes to you. Look at this. He gets into the boat with you. And although here the disciples have a long way to go in spiritually understanding, what we find as we read the other story counts, this is a moment where they grow in faith and they confess the reality of who Jesus is. And they worship him. It's in this story, especially in the Gospel of Matthew, where a lot of people have worshiped the Magi, but it's the first place where we see the disciples begin to do this. It's in this story that they take the first step to sort of truly begin to see that Jesus is the Son of God. That's our call. When our emotions are like the stormy sea, when our struggle is making no progress, when our fears seem to overwhelm, to understand that in all the certainty we have a certainty of a Savior who steps into

the boat in the midst of the storm with us. One of the interesting things in John's account is that you see sort of three miracles happening in this text. You see, first of all, that Jesus walks on the water. And in the Gospel of Mark, you see that as he gets into the boat, the storm calms. But in John chapter six, he said to them, "It is I, do not be afraid." And they were glad to take him into the boat. And here is maybe the third miracle in all this. And immediately, the boat was at the land to which they were going. And it's, people have debated back and forth, is this a third miracle? Jesus walks on water, he calms the storm, and then as he gets into the boat, it's immediately at the shoreline on the other side. We don't know, but I think probably yes, if you can walk on water, and if you can calm a storm, you can get a boat from point A to point B faster.

than has ever been known. But there's something to be said here of the perspective of how we look back on life after the storm is over. They have struggled through this storm for hours. And where it ends, amazement, worship, and they find themselves on the other side. Now, in the moment of that struggle, it felt like it was forever. But when they are through the storm and on the other side standing with Jesus, as they look back, they see God's hand in all of it. And I want you to see this morning that there is a Savior for our uncertainties. When you feel like you're in the midst of a stormy sea and your struggle is making no progress, when your fears seem to overwhelm, Jesus is the Savior who steps into the boat of your uncertainty, your struggle, and your fears. Let's pray. Father in heaven, I thank you for Jesus. And I ask that as we face both the joys and the sorrows, the moments of quiet and the moments of frantic activity in our lives, that you would turn our eyes toward Jesus. That you would help us to see that we are not alone. that you would fix our eyes on your son.