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Grace, mercy, and peace from God, our Father, and His Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.
It’s here. School is finally here. It’s upon us. And it’s interesting, when I talk to the children
and to the young adults that are now in high school, I ask them, are you ready? And some
will say yes I’m ready I can’t wait but the majority of them say well not so but
it’s here the school is ready for the kids but more so I want to thank all of
the teachers and all the staff and all the faculty and all the preparation for
this first day of school as they have worked hard as they have decorated the
rooms, as they have worked in communication with all that needs to be
done. They’ve set their curriculum for the year, they have bought their books, and
they now have their daily planners. Everything that they hope to achieve
through this whole school year, day by day by day, their goals and their
objectives and during that time of each day through that process they will
expose the children’s weaknesses. Might be class participation, it might be
watching them, observing them doing projects, it might be even quizzes or
exams but they will expose the students weaknesses. They do this not because they
don’t like them. They don’t do this because they want to make their lives
miserable. They do this because they love them and they want the best for them and
to prepare them with the foundations to move on to the next grade and eventually
through high school, graduation, and other educational avenues. So they will at that
point reveal in those days and through those processes the right way. As they
show the weaknesses, they will show the correct way. So today as we look in the
text, the disciples had been with Jesus about halfway through their three-year
school process. The teaching, the preaching, the miracles, even to the point
where Jesus sent them out on short-term missionary trip where they would actually go with his
authority to do those exact things.
In some of the ways, they were coming along, but in other ways, they were still not getting
it.
And then the gospel lesson.
Jesus provides another exam that we see today.
It was needed.
Why?
Because just the text before this where Jesus was with his disciples and he sees this mass
of people, 5,000 men, women, and children plus, and he says, okay, how are we going to
feed them?
They’re looking at their pockets, they’re looking in their bags, they’re looking around,
and they say, send them away.
Wrong answer.
Jesus already sees that they’re looking in the wrong place.
They were looking at themselves, they were looking at their own means instead of looking
to Him, the provider of all things.
Jesus says, bring to me the five loaves and the two fish.
He blesses them, gives them to the disciples, and then they feed the mass that had gathered.
And for a lesson for them, they come back, the Scriptures tell us, with twelve basketfuls
of leftovers, one for each disciple.
So he sends them away, as we see in the text.
He sends them away in the boat and the master teacher himself is setting the
stage. He is preparing the experiment. He is getting all the logistics ready for
the next exam. So timing is important. Number one, he sends them off in a boat.
go. Number two, he dismisses the crowd, a large crowd that would take time. Number
three, he goes up onto a mountain, he prays to his father. Now during this time they
were in the boat, the scripture says they were far away from the land, another
gospel says about three or four miles out, which would be approximately about
halfway across the lake and so the text tells us the times were difficult for
them they were making process progress but it was slow and as the wind and the
wave continued to buck them the text says it was about the fourth hour so
Jesus had waited the fourth hours between three and six o’clock in the
morning. He sent the people away. Evening came. He goes up to the mount. He prays
and then He walks out to the disciples at this time. And then when He approaches
them, we see that they’re terrified. They’re shocked. They saw Him, a human
in form walking on water.
No boat.
Understandable.
No man can do this.
No one can possibly walk on water.
So here’s the test.
Jesus was there.
And He says, take heart.
It is I.
Do not be afraid.
Here’s the test. Calm down. It is I. In Greek, ego emi, which means I. I am. Which is familiar
to you because you’ve heard it in the Old Testament when God was talking to Moses through
the burning bush when he asked, who are you? And God said, I am who I am. And then they
hear the words, don’t be afraid. Told again and again by God and His messengers
and now God Himself in their presence. Jesus’ words and voice and His presence
before them. Jesus is more than a man. Jesus is God and He has come to them in
person. And so we would say that’s enough, right? It’s going to be okay. God is with
us. Oh Peter, Peter says, Lord if it is you, command me to come to you on the
water. And we’ve heard that before. If you are the Son of God, turn this bread, this
rocks into bread, or to step off the pentacle off the temple, or to worship me.”
The words, if.
The Lord Jesus rejected the devil, but he would receive Peter when he says, come.
So Peter gets out of the boat, walks on the water, and he draws to Jesus.
But here we see Peter showing himself. He is exposing his weakness for here he is,
he’s looking at the wind and the wave that is before him and he starts to
shink because he starts to think to himself, I’m not supposed to be able to
do this. And he takes his eyes off the object of his faith, his Lord Jesus, and
he begins to sink, exposing Peter’s weaknesses. But here we see something
about Peter that he’s now learning more and more as he is with Jesus, because
Because immediately he cries out, he cries out, Lord, save me.
And this is a cry of faith.
Peter can’t save himself.
He turns to the Lord, Lord, save me.
And as Peter grows in that understanding of who Jesus is, Peter will also come to understand
that he can’t save himself from sin, death, and the power of the devil.
The cry of faith, Jesus, save me.
The same hand that does not allow him to go under water is there when Peter cannot go
to Jesus, Jesus comes to Peter and reaches out and saves him.
And those same hands will reach out, spread out, and allow himself to be
nailed to a cross. Not because anything that he has done, but it’s what Peter has
done. It’s what you have done. It’s what I have done. Because the law exposes us
in our weakness, that we cannot save ourselves. So we cry out in faith,
Jesus save us. The same hands that will reach out and show the disciples in that
locked room the nail marks in his hands after his resurrection for them, for you,
and for me. Little faith, big faith, in-between faith, faith cries out to
Jesus, save me. The bad times, the good times, the in-between times, we cry out to
Jesus
What is your cry
We did it this morning in the carrier. We cry out because we are exposed
Lord have mercy Christ have mercy Lord have mercy and
Immediately afterwards it is revealed and we also break out and the glory and excelsius
thanking God for all that He does for us.
In His presence, you and I are forgiven by His grace.
You and I have been adopted, we have been redeemed,
we have been atoned for, we have been transferred
from the kingdom of the devil into the kingdom of God.
We’ve been made from spiritually dead to spiritually alive,
not by what we have done, but what He has done
and does for us.
The disciples were growing.
Because we see when Jesus and Peter
immediately get into the boat,
they all fall down
and they worship Him.
And they say, truly, You are
the Son of God.
Growing in faith.
Matthew 8, a couple of chapters before
when Jesus was with them in another boat
in another storm. Jesus was sleeping. The water and the wind was blowing. The water
was coming in. The disciples were concerned about the boat sinking. And they go over and
they tell Jesus, save us. Jesus gets up and He says, oh you of little faith. And then
He calms the wind and the water. And at that point the disciples marveled what sort of
man is this, that the wind and the sea obey him, but in our text today, truly, you are
the Son of God.
In closing, I would like to conclude with a portion of verses from an epistle because
it is about you and me.
and what God has given to us that is not just a one-time encounter, but the Lord
is with us through the good times and through the bad times and there will be
times in our lives that there will be tests and the Lord desires for us as we
He continues to teach us as the Master Teacher to not look to ourselves but to
look to Him and to say, Lord, save us.
This is a couple of verses that the Apostle Paul
wrote to the church in Thessalonica in the second letter.
And it’s for Thanksgiving.
And it reads as he speaks to the church.
We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers,
as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly
and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. Therefore we
ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness
in faith and all the persecution and all the afflictions that you are enduring,
brothers and sisters in Christ. The Lord is with us and there will be those days
in our lives that will be trials and tribulations and struggles, but the Lord
was with us and there will be times that we don’t understand what’s going on or
why it’s going on, but understand that the love of Jesus, God’s Son, is for you
and nothing can separate that from you and the love of Christ he promises. Amen.
The peace which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ
Jesus our Lord. Amen.
