Deep Waters to Deep Worship

Transcript

Welcome to this week’s sermon from Trinity Church in Portland, Oregon. We hope this message inspires you, roots you down deep into the Lord, into His Word, and may His Spirit be your guide as you enjoy this teaching. Thanks for joining us. Here’s the message. Trinity Church, the sermon text for this morning comes from Mark, chapter 6, verses 45 through 56. 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 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 astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Well, our passage this morning picks up immediately where we left off last week. And so in many ways, the stories of last week and this week are connected. The passage is somewhat of a continuation or a part two of last week’s passage, which is why in verse 45, Mark starts his section with his very famous word, immediately.

The Context of Exhaustion

Now normally Mark uses the word immediately as a literary tool or device to help set the pace of his gospel. That’s his style. He’s just very quick and rapid. But in this particular passage, the word immediately is used as a bridge to connect the two passages. So last week’s passage, in every way, sets the majority of the context for our passage this morning. So let’s begin by picking up where we left off last week in verse 45. Immediately, He made His disciples go into the boat and go before Him to the other side to Bethsaida while He dismissed the crowd. So after the miracle of Jesus feeding the 5,000, Jesus immediately dismisses His apostles. And really, Jesus does this for two reasons. First, if you remember last week, Jesus’s original intention was to give His apostles some much needed rest. We learned last week that His apostles had just returned from their mini commission of

sorts. And so when they came back, they were exhausted. Jesus had recognized that His apostles were exhausted and that they needed rest. And so He planned for them this sort of mini retreat or this getaway. But as they were traveling to get away, they were confronted by this large crowd. Jesus, looking at this large crowd, saw an opportunity not only to exercise His compassion for the crowd who were sheep without a shepherd, but He also saw an opportunity to instruct His apostles on the priority of ministry, as well as this strange ministry principle of being filled up as they poured themselves out in ministry. And so His apostles had yet to find rest. They were exhausted before the miracle of feeding the 5,000, but they stuck around and grinded it out for the sake of ministry to help meet and serve the needs of the people.

So after Jesus provides for this people, He finally sends His apostles away from the demands of the crowd for their much needed rest. So that’s the first reason Jesus sends them away. But there’s a second reason. And that reason isn’t made clear in Mark’s account. But when you look to John’s gospel account, you get a fuller picture as to why Jesus sends His apostles away. From John’s account, we see that there was a bit of revolutionary nationalism brewing among the crowd. John gives us some deeper perspective concerning the revolutionary mindset of the crowd. In John 6, 14 through 15, it says,

when the people saw the sign that He had done, they said, this is indeed the prophet who has come into the world. 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

— John 6

(ESV)

.

So immediately after Jesus has compassion on the crowd, after He teaches the crowd, and after He miraculously feeds the 5,000, John’s gospel tells us that the people attempt to make Jesus king by force. Now why would the people do that? Well, the people witnessing this miraculous and powerful act of Jesus saw an opportunity with Jesus to overthrow their Roman oppressors. They viewed Jesus as their long-awaited military Messiah. See, the people of Israel had long been under the oppression of Rome. Rome was a secular and pagan culture that had zero respect for Jewish law and Jewish tradition. And the Romans kept the Jews in line by way of fear and force. Remember also that this is right on the hills of John the Baptist getting beheaded. Herod, who was deeply embedded into the Roman fabric of society, was the one who killed John the Baptist. And this death of John the Baptist had caused an uproar with some of the Jewish people and

some of the people in the crowd that Jesus was ministering to. Because the crowd knew who John the Baptist was. They knew who he was. They knew what he represented, that he was a righteous and holy man. And they viewed Rome as the ones responsible for killing John the Baptist. And so they had enough. They wanted revolution. They wanted Jesus to lead them out of their Roman captivity, just like Moses led the people of Israel out of Egyptian captivity. And see, this is another reason why Jesus, in our verse last week, juxtaposed himself with Moses to preemptively show the people that he and Moses were in many ways similar, but they were not the same. Jesus is the greater Moses that leads his people out of captivity, who liberates his people, but not the way that this crowd thought. Not from Rome and not by military force.

Revolutionary Expectations

Jesus is the one who would free them from the captivity of their sin by laying down his life to die for the people. So Jesus sends his apostles away from that crowd so that they don’t get caught up in this rising tide of revolutionary nationalism that is moving through the crowd. And notice it says that Jesus made his disciples get into the boat. Now that little word reveals a whole lot about the apostles. It reveals that they did not want to leave Jesus, that they wanted to stay there. The night was beginning to wind down. They were exhausted. They wanted to sleep. They needed rest. But Jesus was now forcing them to get into a boat and travel to the other side of the sea, which means then that they can’t rest yet. They have more work to do until they can finally get some rest.

But after some resistance, the apostles reluctantly obey. They get in the boat and they set course for Bethsaida while Jesus hangs back. But Jesus doesn’t send his apostles away so that he can hang back and continue to engage the crowd. No, Jesus withdrew from the crowd. Now listen, Jesus does continue to do ministry for the people in the crowd. It’s just a different kind of ministry. Jesus now moves into a ministry of prayer. And that’s what we see here in verse 46. And after he had taken leave of them, he went up on the mountain to pray. So Jesus, after he pushes the boat with his apostles in it out to sea, he withdrew from the crowd. Now, listen, we would withdraw from the crowd and go to sleep. If we were tired, that’s what we would do. But Jesus withdrew from the crowd not to sleep, but to do more work to pray.

And you see, we talked a little bit about this last week, that sometimes when we are so exhausted, we think the rest that we need is physical rest. But oftentimes real rest is spiritual. That comes from pouring ourselves out when we are riding on empty. And he just showed this to his apostles. If you remember, he just taught this to his ministry partners as a ministry paradigm. And here Jesus now privately practices what he preaches. Jesus was exhausted. Jesus needed physical rest, but he prioritized his ministry work over his physical rest by getting away by himself to do this work of prayer. And this is a good instruction for us this morning. If Jesus privately practices what he preaches, then we should do the same. If Jesus sometimes prioritizes ministry over his own needs, including rest, then we should do the same. If Jesus sees value in prayer and views prayer as ministry work, then we should do the same.

Jesus’s Ministry of Prayer

And see, that’s what was happening here. That’s what Jesus does here. And what is he praying about? Well, the text doesn’t quite tell us, but we can pretty much deduce what Jesus prayed for based on Jesus’s patterns of prayer, based on his character, and based on the circumstances that surrounded him. He probably prayed for himself, he probably prayed for the crowd, and he probably prayed for his apostles. Again, remember, Jesus’s friend and forerunner, John the Baptist, was just beheaded. His own friend and ministry partner was just killed as a direct result of ministry work. So Jesus likely prayed a prayer of lament for the gross injustice and untimely death of John the Baptist. See, there was no reason for John the Baptist to have been killed. So Jesus was likely grieving and mourning the death of John the Baptist in prayer. And we as Christians should see this as a template.

When we see gross injustice and death that comes from the evil injustices of our world, we should pray prayers of lament. We just saw this week this unjust murder of George Floyd. This should have caused the church to lament, to mourn, and to grieve, to pour out our hearts in prayer that God would bring perfect justice. But lament and prayers for justice are a lost art in our Western world. And more often than not, the church does the opposite of lament. Instead, they justify the injustice. But Jesus lamented over the injustice of John’s death. And so we ought to lament over the injustices of our world and pray that God would bring perfect justice. See, the reality is John’s death probably pushed Jesus into the headspace of his own imminent death as a direct result of ministry. He likely prayed that the Father would supernaturally fill him up after he completely emptied himself

to meet the needs of the people. He likely prayed for the Father to physically and spiritually carry him through all that he needed to do to fulfill the Father’s purposes. That God would give him the strength and the help to endure his coming sufferings, his coming crucifixion, and his coming death. The reality of John’s death brought a sober perspective to Jesus’s own coming death. We’ve seen Jesus pray this way before. In Matthew 26, 36 through 38,

then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, sit here while I go over there and pray. And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, my soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch with me

— Matthew 26

(ESV)

. Jesus here is praying a prayer of lament.

This is his praying paradigm. And here in our text, Jesus is lamenting the death of John the Baptist. He couldn’t help but think about the crowd’s response to his teaching. Jesus taught the crowd about the kingdom of God. But because of the injustice and death of John the Baptist, the people were in an uproar. They wanted revolution. They wanted blood. It wasn’t necessarily the kingdom of God that the people wanted. Rather, they wanted liberation from the kingdom of Caesar. So Jesus likely prayed for the people to understand how the kingdom of God works. That God’s kingdom is a kingdom that is not taken by force, but a kingdom taken by faith. That true liberation comes not by sword, but by a bloody cross that Jesus himself would eventually be nailed to. And finally, he likely prayed for his apostles. He knew they were exhausted from ministry.

He also knew that there was still a lot more for them to learn in terms of their life in ministry. So he prayed for them, that they would find real rest, that they would be encouraged in their struggles, that they would trust in the Lord as they moved in and through the dark places, and that their faith would not fail. See, this also was a pattern for Jesus. In Luke 22, 31, Jesus, speaking to Peter’s arrogance and forthcoming denial, says, Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. See, this is the pattern of Jesus. This is the heart of Jesus, not just for his apostles, but for all of his people. He prays for us because he cares about us, because he understands our needs, because he knows our struggles, because he’s acquainted with our grief and with our sufferings, because

he understands our temptations and because he knows when our faith is failing. He prays for us. He prays to the Father on our behalf. First Timothy 2 5 says, For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus. He prayed for his apostles because in the next section we will see that the apostles were in who were in desperate need of rest will again be pushed beyond their physical limits. And we see that in verse 47. And when evening came, the boat was out on the sea and he was alone on the land. And he saw that they were making headway painfully for the wind was against them. And about the fourth watch of night, he came to them walking on the sea. He meant to pass by them. So here you see not only the struggles of the disciples on the sea, but you also get

Storm in the Night

a picture of the divine nature of Jesus. So the apostles are out on the sea when suddenly they are again stuck in the middle of a storm. We’ve seen this before in Mark’s gospel. So given the fact that it was late evening around seven or eight when the miracle of feeding the 5000 took place means that it was probably around nine or 10 when they got in the boat and left to the sea, then it probably puts them in the middle of this storm somewhere around three to six a.m. So what should have been just a few hours of sailing across to the other side of the sea has now turned into an all night struggle. See, the plan was for them to set sail and coast into the sea of Bethsaida. Maybe one apostle would stay awake while the rest slept in the boat.

Maybe the plan was for them to take shifts. We don’t know. But in any event, the plan was for them to rest while they sailed to the other side of the sea. But again, things don’t seem to go as they planned because the winds begin to shift, the waves begin to rise, and because the waves are so aggressive, they have to take down the sails and begin rowing towards the other side of the sea. But no matter how much they rowed, they couldn’t seem to make any progress. And of course, the sudden shift of winds and the rising of the waves probably harkened them back to that time when Jesus was in the violent storm with them. The last time this happened, Jesus was with them. Even though he was asleep in the back of the boat, he was still present with them. All they had to do was wake him up and Jesus woke up and quieted the winds and still the

waves. But this time, Jesus wasn’t asleep in the back of the boat. Jesus wasn’t physically present with them. So they’re stressed. They still haven’t had a chance to sleep. At this point, they’re beyond physical exhaustion. They’re not making any headway, no matter how hard they work. They’re struggling. And at this point, they’re just completely miserable. It’s cold. They’re wet. They’re tired. They just want to be done with this day. But it seems like this day is never ending. It’s just an ongoing series of ever increasing difficulties. And listen, the apostles are in this predicament, not because they’re being chastened by the Lord, but because of their obedience to the Lord. Remember, it was Jesus that forced them into the boat in the first place. If Jesus would have just let them stay where they were, they wouldn’t be in this miserable situation. They were miserable because they were being obedient.

And I’m so thankful that this verse is here because this verse reveals that Christians can and do walk through the most difficult of circumstances, the most challenging and miserable situations when we are being obedient to Jesus. See, this verse here is the silver bullet that shoots through the heart of the prosperity gospel. It means that just because you’re obedient to Jesus doesn’t mean that you won’t have hardships. Obedience to Christ doesn’t guarantee you an easy life. In fact, obedience to Jesus might very well cause you to experience your worst life now. And that’s because God is using the difficulties in this life, the challenges and the miserable circumstances to grow our faith and to push our hope and expectations into Jesus and the life to come. See, sometimes God uses pain to perfect us. Sometimes God uses hardships to help us worship him in a more meaningful way.

Pain and hardships are the very instruments God uses to eradicate superficial tendencies and fickle faith. And these apostles in real time will learn through their misery that deeper waters oftentimes lead to deeper worship. And even though in this particular storm, Jesus was not asleep in the back of the boat, it doesn’t mean that Jesus was not present or not able to help them in their time of misery. See, Jesus from the shore supernaturally sees his apostles struggling. He sees them in their misery. He sees them not making any headway. And so Jesus again comes to their misery and distress. And how does he come to their aid? Just like before, Jesus again bends the laws of physics. But this time, instead of stilling the waters, he walks on water. He walks on water. And even though this is amazing, even though this is mind-blowing and supernaturally, what

speaks more powerfully than Jesus walking on the water is the why, the where, and the who Jesus is walking to. He sees his apostles in great distress and immediately begins to walk towards them to help them, to minister to them, and to serve them. And see, this tells you everything you need to know about Jesus, our good shepherd. He sees and knows when his sheep are in distress, and he is willing to walk on water in the darkness, in the middle of our most difficult storms, to meet us in our misery, to be ever present with us in our difficulties. This, brothers and sisters, is the God that we serve. This is the God that we worship, the one who walks on water, but the one who also walks into our misery to save us, to be present with us. And it’s here where we see the divine nature and the human nature of Jesus collide.

Walking on Water

He walks supernaturally on the water because he cares for his people. And as Jesus is walking towards them, strangely, the text says he meant to pass by them. Now that seems like a strange strategy for Jesus. Why does Jesus just walk by them? Why doesn’t he walk straight towards them if his intentions are to help them? Well, again, this is Jesus pulling our focus into Moses. This is an echo of Exodus 33, 18 through 23. When Moses asks the Lord to see his glory, the Lord responds by saying, I will make all my goodness pass before you. When Jesus passed by the boat, he was revealing his divine glory to his apostles. When Jesus passed by them, he was revealing to his apostles his divine nature, that Jesus was God. And look at the response of the apostles as Jesus passed by them walking on the sea.

Let’s look at verse 49. But when they saw him walking on the water, they thought it was a ghost and they cried out for they all saw him and were terrified. Jesus intended to show them his divine glory and bring them supernatural help in their distress and the apostles freaked out. They were terrified. Now, why would they be terrified? Well, first, they can’t seem to reconcile what’s happening before their eyes. Again, they’re exhausted, they’re stressed out, they’re miserable. And the last thing they were expecting to see was Jesus walking on the water. It doesn’t seem reasonable that Jesus would be approaching their boat. So they move to what they think is most reasonable. Oh, it’s a ghost walking on the water. That’s their logical conclusion. The truth is they weren’t expecting Jesus to show up and help them. So they freak out when they see this illuminating figure moving across the waves on the water.

Their response was fear because functionally they believed that God was far from their situation, that God was distant from their stressful circumstances. See their perspective was clouded. And when their perspective was clouded, they began to allow fear to drive their reasoning, their trust in the Lord and their faith. And we could look at that and think how foolish. They thought Jesus was a ghost. But don’t we sometimes respond in the same kind of ways when we’re going through difficult or dark circumstances, when we’re depressed, when we’re stressed out over finances, when we’re full of anxiety, when our parenting is pushed us to our physical and emotional limits, when we are wrestling with pain and misery, we oftentimes functionally believe that God is distant, that he’s far from us, that he doesn’t care, that he’s not here, that he’s not near us, that he won’t come to our aid.

And so we let fear drive all of our emotions. We let fear dictate what is reasonable and our faith gets shipwrecked. But look at how Jesus responds to these terrified apostles who are wrestling with their faith. Verse 50, but immediately he spoke to them and said, take heart. It is I don’t 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. Jesus witnessing the terror of these apostles immediately speaks to calm their fears. And this here is a beautiful picture of the nature of Jesus’s humanity, of his tremendous care and concern for his people. When they are afraid, he doesn’t want them to be controlled by fear. He doesn’t want them to be discouraged. So immediately Jesus identifies himself and says, take heart.

It is I, it’s me, Jesus. You don’t need to be afraid anymore. I’m with you. I’m close to you. I’m near. I’m present. And when I hear this story, I can’t help but think about my own kids. If they get afraid in the middle of the night, sometimes they scream for mommy and daddy and Heather and I quickly run into their room to calm their fears, to settle their hearts. The first thing we say to our boys is it’s okay. Daddy’s here. You don’t need to be afraid or it’s okay. Mommy’s here. Don’t be afraid. I’m with you. And see, for a four year old and a six year old, it’s amazing the kind of comfort that comes when parents identify themselves to remind their children of their presence. A parent’s presence has a way of stripping away their children’s fear, and that’s precisely what Jesus was going after when he identified himself with his apostles.

This is Jesus caring for his apostles. There’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s not a ghost. It’s me. But at that moment of Jesus’s presence, for some reason, their fears don’t fade. Instead, their fears turn into astonishment. And that’s because the apostles had not yet fully come to understand what Jesus has come to do. The text says that they were astonished because they didn’t understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened. Yeah, they just witnessed the miracle of Jesus feeding the five thousand with five loaves and two fish. But they didn’t really comprehend the significance of what that miracle meant or what that miracle pointed to. See, the lesson of the loaves were all about his divine power to provide for his people. That Jesus was God powerfully and supernaturally working to accomplish his saving purposes. The view of Christ for these apostles was limited, so they didn’t quite understand everything

that was going on, which is why the apostles responded the way they did. This is why they were astonished. Eventually, these apostles would figure it out. The more time they spend with Jesus, the more they would follow Jesus, the fuller their perspective of Jesus would become. Now, Mark’s account is a bit truncated, and that’s because that’s Mark’s style. It’s punchy and it’s to the point. But Matthew’s account of this narrative gives us a bit more perspective on how this whole story ended. Mark leaves out some important parts of the story that brings this story to a beautiful close. So it’s hard for me to preach this passage without pulling in Matthew’s account. Matthew in chapter 14, verses 28 through 33, immediately after he identifies himself to the apostles, Peter boldly says, Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come out to you on the water.

Jesus says, okay, Peter, come on, let’s go. Peter gets out of the boat and begins to do the impossible. Peter begins to walk on water. But the moment his attention turns away from Jesus and onto the storm, he is overcome with fear and begins to sink. He cries out, Lord, save me. And so Jesus takes his hand and comforts him, confronts his doubt and says, Peter, why do you have such little faith? When Jesus gets in the boat, the wind immediately ceased and those who were in the boat worshiped him saying, truly, you are the son of God. And what you see here is that all of this difficulty, all of the struggle, all of the misery was God’s attempt to build up their faith. This here is God using the deep waters to deepen their worship. God used their misery to eradicate their superficial worship.

Deeper Waters, Deeper Worship

And that’s exactly what God does to us. When we go through unthinkable difficulties, when we are pushed beyond our limits, when we’re struggling through the darkest of storms with no way out and no way forward, God is with us using those circumstances to deepen our faith. And listen, he will meet us in those stresses. He cares. He’s present. He will help us, not according to our timelines, not according to our comforts, not according to our preferences, but according to his perfect purposes in our life. And those purposes are to mature us and deepen our faith in him. See, God alone knows what types of storms will ultimately mature us the most. God alone knows the hells we must go through so that we would cherish the heavens that awaits us. See, God is in the business of using the difficulties of life to produce greater faith and deeper

worship in the hearts of his children. As we go through the difficult storms of life, he is with us and he helps us through it. I can’t help but think about this passage this morning and wonder, are there those of you who are listening or watching this sermon who are wrestling with God, who are in the midst of deep and dark storms, wondering if God is present, wondering if God is near, wondering if God cares about your circumstances? This passage is a good reminder to you that God does care, that he is near and that he is using the storm to bring you into closer relationship with God, to mature you as a Christian. And if you are listening to this message or hearing this message and you are not a Christian, I want to remind you that God uses the storms in your life to push you towards him.

Is your life a wreck? Are you wrestling with the darkness? Are you clouded by fear? Are you overwhelmed by your sin? Jesus Christ loved us enough that he came to live his life and lay it down for his people, that those who would follow him, those who would trust him and take him by faith would be saved from their sins. If that is the Jesus that you want this morning, that is the Jesus that you can have simply by trusting and following him. Let’s pray. Our Father and our God, as we read this passage, we are confronted with the divinity of Jesus and the humanity of Jesus, the heart of Jesus that loves his people so much that he comes to lay his life down for them. The God who is willing and able to do the unthinkable, to do the miraculous, to invade the hearts of his people, to save his people.

And Father, I pray that as we hear your word to us this morning, that this would conform us more into the image of your son, that we would get a fuller picture of who Jesus is and what he has done for us. Help us to see Jesus and help us to recognize that as we are walking through deep waters, that as we are in the midst of difficult storms, that we would trust and know that God is near us, that he is with us, that he is walking with us through the storm and that he’s using this storm to make us better. I pray, God, that we would recognize that and trust and believe that he’s working all things out for our good. We pray all these things in Jesus’ name, amen. Thanks for joining us for this week’s sermon from Trinity Church in Portland, Oregon.

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