Our Transcendent Savior

Introduction:

Have you ever witnessed an athlete who just keeps surpassing your expectations? In his prime, before his downfall (which just so happened to coincide with his signing with the Angels), Josh Hamilton was a little bit like that for me. I remember watching the guy and being amazed that he would get up after crashing into the wall to make a catch, or that he would come through again in the clutch when we needed a big hit, or that he could be that fast with a body that big.

If we’re impressed with athletes, imagine being Jesus’ disciples! Imagine every day wondering what you were going to witness that day!

Jesus is our transcendent Savior. He surpasses our expectations, defies our understanding, and reorients our desires on a regular basis. Take your Bibles and open up to John 6 as we get a picture of this transcendent Savior in action.

Body:

The Conflict:

Large crowds follow Jesus because they had experienced the benefits of Jesus

John 6:1-2 “they saw the signs he was doing on the sick.”

John 2:23-25

Mark 6:33-35

Had compassion on them

Like sheep without a shepherd

[John 6:4 - note about Passover]

Jesus isn’t in Jerusalem at this moment, so it wasn’t a comment made to explain the geographical context.

John 7:1 tells us that He was remaining in Galilee because the Jews in Judea were seeking to kill Him.

So John was making another point, and it had to do with what was about to transpire in the rest of the chapter. (The Bread of Life)

Mark 6:35-36

It had grown late while Jesus was teaching, and the crowds needed to be fed.

Jesus asks Philip where food can be found to feed the people in order to test him

John 6:6 “for he himself knew what he would do”

Philip fails the test, and Andrew sarcastically points out the lunch of a young boy.

Philip: “8 months of wages wouldn’t suffice to feed this crowd!”

John 6:9 “but what are they for so many?”

“What are they for so many?” The question conveys the skepticism, the doubt, the resignation. They had seen Jesus do amazing things, but this seemed too great a feat even for Him. But that’s the thing about Jesus, when we read about Him and learn about Him, we find that He tends to transcend the limits of our expectations.

P1: Trust in Our Savior Who Shatters Expectations (vv. 1-13)

Illustrate: The M1 chip from Apple

Movies can exceed our expectations

Marriage exceeds our expectations

Parenting exceeds our expectations

Jesus exceeds our expectations.

Jesus has the people sit down and as you know from the stories in Sunday School, he feeds everyone from the five loaves and two fish and even has an abundance left over.

The greatest example of Jesus exceeding our expectations is the cross.

The predicament we faced was far greater than a hungry crowd of 7-10,000 with only 5 loaves and two fish.

Our predicament was a perfectly holy and just God and the debt we owed for our sin.

Asking Philip where to find enough food for such a crowd is like asking a sinner how many good deeds he needs to accomplish before God will forgive him.

Both questions lead us to the same place: it’s not possible.

And both questions lead us to the same solution: faith in Jesus.

This was less about the crowd and more about the faith of the disciples. Jesus was beckoning Philip (and the other disciples) to trust that He could do what transcended the limitations of human expectation.

Can we also pause and consider that Jesus is still shattering our expectations?

He’s satisfied the Father’s wrath against us through taking our place on the cross

He’s given us His righteousness so that we might stand before our holy Father

He’s interceding for us/praying for us. (Hebrews 7)

He’s our conduit to the Father (Hebrews 4)

What has Jesus done, what is Jesus doing, what might Jesus do in your life to remind you of His identity while bolstering your faith in Him at the same time?

END P1

The Conflict:

The disciples leave ahead of Jesus to return to Capernaum.

CONTEXT: They had been with Jesus for a long day of ministry that had included the confrontation with the Jews from chapter 5 and His defense of His identity and His authority, and now, they had been across the lake with Him for a long time of teaching and this most recent miracle.

Jesus had retreated to be by Himself, and the disciples weren’t sure when He would return.

So being ready for bed, they get into the boat and leave ahead of Jesus.

The journey would have been 6-7 miles and took some time and night fell while they were on the sea

They had been rowing for quite some time and only made 3-4 miles of progress

Mark 6:48 kk

The disciples suddenly see Jesus walking on the sea and approaching the boat

John 6:19 “and they were frightened”

This encounter with Jesus was not what the disciples expected to see (see point number 1), but even more it was not something they were able to understand, which is evidenced by their fear. Again, Jesus was defying the limits of the disciples, this time as it pertained to their understanding of natural law.

P2: Worship the Savior Who Defies Understanding (vv. 16-21)

Illustrate: There are these videos on social media of guys in way better shape than I am jumping over buckets of water and tapping their toes on the surface as they pass over the bucket. That’s impressive, but that’s not walking on water.

Again, you know the rest of the story from Sunday School.

It’s stormy at this point, and yet, here comes this figure walking on the water terrifying the disciples.

Jesus reassures them by identifying Himself

Once they recognized Him they welcomed Him into the boat with joy.

Then something amazing happened again. The text says they were immediately at their destination1

Again, Jesus was transcending the limits of what the disciples thought possible. This time He was walking on water and suspending the laws of time and space to bring them immediately to their destination.

The passage doesn’t say they worshiped Jesus, but there’s another time when they were with Jesus on a stormy sea that leads me to believe there may have been a similar response this time.

Men, not only does Jesus defy our expectations, but if we’re honest, the cross defies our understanding as well.

1 Corinthians 1:18-21

Do you ever have those moments of amazement that Jesus has died for your sins?! You don’t understand it, but you believe it, and it floors you?

Romans 5

Are you as amazed at your salvation as these men must have been watching Jesus cross the waves through the wind to climb into their boat?

Are you as moved to awe as these men must have been when the next thing they knew was that they were there at the shore in Capernaum?

If we’re not as moved to wonder over the work of Christ on the cross for us as we would be to see someone walk on water, we don’t fully appreciate what happened at the cross.

It makes far less sense for the God of the universe to sacrifice His son on the bloody cross as a payment for our sins than it does to see a man walk on the waves.

It is far more puzzling to imagine our just God bridging the gap between our sinful state and His holiness than it is to think of how that boat closed the gap between itself and the shore as quickly as it did in our passage.

Jesus shatters our expectations and defies our understanding.

This is where we have to be careful because I’m not going to ask you if you’re facing any situations where you need the Lord to suspend natural law to intervene. I’m not going to ask you what your Sea of Galilee is, but I am going to encourage you to consider the reality that we worship the same Savior still today!

John 5:36 ESV

36 But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me.

END P2

The Conflict:

The crowd realized Jesus had gone and made their way to Capernaum to seek Him out

They knew that Jesus and His disciples only had one boat and that the disciples had left the night before without Him

Unable to locate Him though, the crowds decided to return to Capernaum where they knew Jesus had made His home base.

They find Him there in Capernaum and ask what I think all of us would have asked as well: How did you get here?!

Jesus’ response however, revealed that there was a problem lying under the surface of this question.

Jesus confronts them not for a lack of faith, but for seeking the wrong things

John 6:26 “you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.”

The crowd was impressed, but it wasn’t so much that they wanted to be entertained. Here was a potential leader who would guarantee that they would always have food in their bellies. They wanted Him to be their king (John 6:15) because of the temporal security it would provide for their perceived needs.

John 5:41-44 (A flattered and flattering Messiah)

Jesus was calling them out because their fervor was misplaced.

This time it’s not the expectations or the understanding of the disciples that Jesus was confronting. It was the desires of the masses. They were thinking too small in light of their greater need and Jesus’ greater provision. Their desires were self-focused and earth-bound, and Jesus was there to do far greater things than merely fill their bellies.

P3: Submit to Our Savior Who Reorients Our Desires (vv. 22-29)

Just like these crowds, people come to Jesus expecting Him to fulfill many of their desires.

If I give Jesus a try maybe my life will get a little better

Health, wealth, and prosperity gospel

Illustrate: Couple came to The Bridge looking for Benny Hinn and had our college students pray for her that the Lord’s will would be done!

John 6:27 “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food of eternal life”

Men, the food that perishes can take many forms in our lives:

Money

Success

Status

Friends

Comfort

Health

Family

These things aren’t bad in and of themselves, and they can be wonderful servants of our relationship with Jesus, but it is Jesus that we must desire most over any one of these other pursuits.

CS Lewis: It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. (The Weight and the Glory)

John 6:27

The food that endures to eternal life is Christ Himself as will be borne out in the following verses (John 6:35)

Men when we find that our desires are for things more than or other than Christ we must be quick to repent and reorient those desires. The reason? Everything else perishes. It’s the question once more, “What will really matter 100 years from now?” Work for those things. Desire those things. Desire that which will result in you hearing your Savior say, “Well done good and faithful servant.” Desire the treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroy and thieves cannot break-in and steal. Desire the pleasures forevermore at the right hand of the Father in Whose presence there is fullness of joy.

Matthew 22:37-39

Conclusion:

Jesus is so desirable because He is better than everything else in this world. Granted, it takes work to believe that because we’re prone to desire other things either from Him or more than Him. But isn’t that why it’s so encouraging that God is a gracious God?

Isn’t it encouraging that He is a God who is slow to anger; abounding in steadfast love; merciful and gracious?

Isn’t it encouraging to know that if you’re in Christ tonight He has already done the ultimate work that shatters our expectations, that transcends our understanding, and that reorients our desires?

Let me encourage you tonight men to expect God to continue to do these things for the rest of your life. Life as a Christian isn’t an escalator, it’s a roller-coaster. All the while, through the twists and turns and ups and downs, God is working. He’s working to make us more like this Savior who we’ve been studying so far in the gospel of John. And that’s good news.

Romans 8:28-29

Jesus is bigger than our expectations, greater than our understanding, and better than our most passionate desires. The disciples were slowly beginning to learn that, and I pray that we are as well.