It Is I, Do Not Be Afraid
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16 When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, 17 got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. 18 The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. 19 When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were frightened. 20 But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” 21 Then they were glad to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going.
Sermon Series: The Miracles of Jesus
If you recall from the past two sermons on this series...
Purposes of Jesus’ Miracles:
a. To meet a need. (The obvious reason) - To authenticate His mission.
b. To prove Jesus is from God. - To authenticate His Person
c. So people will believe in Jesus. - To authenticate His message.
What is seen in the physical (the miracle) ultimately is meant for the spiritual. Jesus healed the body but He cared for the soul. The only way for anyone to be saved is to believe that Jesus is the Son of God.
We can see this from a statement by the apostle John toward the end of his book:
30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
In The last message on this series, we studied the only miracle other than the Resurrection that was written in all four gospels - the feeding of the five thousand.
This spectacular miracle which was the biggest in terms of crowd participation, there were five thousand men, but if you count the women and the children there could be around twenty five thousand people that were fed by Jesus.
When the crowds saw this, they knew the undeniable power of Jesus and their response was instead of following Jesus as the Messiah, the Lord of their souls.. they thought of Him as a human king.... they want to use Jesus for their own personal plans and desires:
14 When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!” 15 Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
After the miracle they immediately thought of making Jesus King, which of course was an act of rebellion against their king Herod and also against the Roman rulers.. they wanted to start an insurrection, a coup d’etat (they wanted to storm the Capitol) they also thought that if Jesus became king, just by what He did with the feeding of the five thousand, they would never go hungry again.. they don’t even have to work - the first welfare state.
But Jesus would have none of that, that was not why He came and so He withdrew from the crowds.. what followed was another mighty miracle.. found in three of the gospels - in Matthew, Mark and John.
Jesus Walks on Water
This is another spectacular miracle that Jesus performed over the forces of nature that only His disciples witnessed.
It is a very important miracle because
By walking on water Jesus protected and preserved His disciples.
I’ll explain the preservation part later...
Like before we are going to do a parallel study of this miracle from separate gospel accounts and form a composite picture of the story.
So we read the short account of Jesus walking on water from John.. let’s see what Mark said:
45 Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. 46 And after he had taken leave of them, he went up on the mountain to pray.
There is controversy with the statements that Jesus made His disciples go over to Bethsaida because in Luke, Luke said that they were already in Bethsaida where Jesus supposedly fed the five thousand.. and also John and the other gospel writers said that they crossed over to end up in the region of Capernaum and Gennesaret this can be easily explained.. one explanation...
Image of Galilee here.
What happened next..
18 The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing.
John said They had rowed about three or four miles, they had drifted farther and pushed by the strong winds..
they have wandered away from their destination and rowing aimlessly (it was dark)..
Notice one thing though..
While Jesus was alone on land.. Mark said:
48 And 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,
The fourth watch of the night is from 3 am to 6 am..
He saw them.. remember it was dark,, there was a storm,, and the disciples were already far, about three or four miles.. and Jesus saw them.. this is the next miracle of the night.. either Jesus saw them through a vision while in prayer or He just simply exercised His divine omniscience as God, He knew what’s going on..
For those of you here and watching online:
Do you feel far from the Lord?
Do you feel you have wandered off aimlessly in life?
Are you tired of all the striving you do in this life?
Remember:
Jesus sees and knows you, He wants to come alongside you, save you and redirect you for His purpose.
While they were struggling to make it back to shore, exhausted and now even afraid for their lives, the disciples were probably thinking they wished Jesus was in the boat, earlier Jesus calmed a storm when Jesus was with them in the boat.
Then Jesus came in most dramatic fashion:
Jesus came to them, walking on the sea.. it is interesting what Mark said.. He meant to pass by them (talk)..
Notice their reaction: this time from Matthew’s account:
26 But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, “It is a ghost!” and they cried out in fear.
Remember these were grown men screaming..
Jesus said:
27 But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.”
This is the most frequent command in the Bible: Do Not Be Afraid
Someone said that there are 365 times that the words “Fear Not” or “Do not be afraid” are found in the Bible, so there is a command to fear not for every single day of the year.. however I found out later that it is inaccurate,, we have less than 365 times,,,,
But the point is we only need to hear these words “Do not be afraid” if it comes from Jesus, IT IS ENOUGH. It is actually a command that we should obey.
“Jesus commands you today: Do not be afraid!”
There are many earthly reasons to fear today; the virus, the failing economy, bad reports from the doctor, global unrest, terrorist threats, and political uncertainty
However, as followers of Christ we have greater reasons to fear not; God will not fail you (Deut.31:6), God will not forsake you (1 Chron. 28:20), God is with you (Isaiah 41:10), God will help you (Isaiah 41:13), God knows you by name (Isaiah 43:1), God can do marvelous things (Joel 2:21), It is God’s pleasure to give you the kingdom (Luke 12:32)
Take heart it is I do not be afraid:
There is a sub-story involving Peter.. found only in Matthew’s narrative.. notice that while Peter had an influence on Mark in writing his gospel that this story was not found in Mark,, perhaps a demonstration of Peter’s humility:
28 And Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”
What was going on inside Peter’s head? Some say it was an act of courage. But it could be that it was an act of fear and demonstration.. I was gonna die anyway, I would rather be in danger of dying with Jesus than in the boat with these fellows.
He said command.. He knew it would take the power of Jesus for him to walk on water..
29 He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus.
So he started walking but when he was close to Jesus,
30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.” 31 Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”
We can take away several more familiar lessons here like:
Don’t look at the storm of your life. Storm represents your problems
Fix your eyes on Jesus.
Call to Jesus, Lord save me! And he will save you.
They are all valid lessons from this story. It is most definitely a lesson on trusting Jesus.
But if that is the only lesson we can glean from this then we merely focus on Peter’s failure, and Peter’s sinking in the water. We forget, that for a considerable amount of time, by the power of Jesus, Peter also walked on water!
I believe the main take away from this story is that:
You don’t have to stay on the boat. You too can walk on water!
It is I do not be afraid! You don’t have to remain in that place of calling God for help. You are not.. you are meant to do MIGHTY EXPLOITS for GOD!
The story is about the Kingdom of God.
The Kingdom of God was just in that tiny boat. That was a turning point..
Mark said in
51 And he got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded, 52 for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.
They did not get it at that point, even after the feeding of the 25,000.. But With the miracle of walking on water, they finally confessed Jesus:
33 And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”
This was an important turning point in the life of His disciples..and Peter.. through this miracle, Jesus preserved His Kingdom.
So they came ashore and John said “and immediately the boat was in the land where they were going.” ANother miracle, the disciples must be like wow!!
At the shore, Matthew and Mark said healings (even just the fringe of His garment) in Gennesaret but John recorded a very important sermon that happened before that. In the synagogue in Capernaum.
There was a great sifting that happened.
The people looked for him after the miracle of the feeding of the Five Thousand,, Jesus bluntly told them you look for me because you ate and were made full.. do not work for food that perishes.. I am the bread of life whoever comes to Me shall not hunger, whoever believes in Me shall never thirst. All that the Father gives Me will come to me and whoever comes to Me I will never cast out.. I am the living bread, unless you eat of my flesh and drink my blood you have no life in you.
They rejected Jesus’ words and invitation. And in verse 66
66 After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. 67 So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?”
67 So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,
Many believe that the turning point for Peter and the rest of the disciples that set them apart from the disciples who left and preserved them for the Kingdom is the miracle of Jesus walking on water.
That was the turning point for them at that specific time.. for the rest of us we already know that Jesus died for us, completed the work of atoning for our sins… resurrected..
Here the words of Jesus today: IT is I, Do Not be Afraid