Faulty Views of Christ

Among the many things that demonstrate the spiritual confusion of our time, perhaps there is none greater than faulty views of Christ. Religious liberals today will talk about Jesus, they'll talk about Him as a good man, a good teacher, a good example for us to follow, but they fall far short of recognizing Jesus for who He really is. He is God, He is the Savior, and religious liberals will not go that far, they will not admit that, they will not say Jesus is the only way they're too concerned about appeasing everyone else. Cults today will call Jesus a prophet, many world religions will call Jesus a prophet, but will not admit that He is God, the only Savior, the only way to heaven. There is a form of theology in many underdeveloped countries called liberation theology, and it's basically in countries that are very poverty stricken or in a revolt kind of setting, and there are those who teach in those settings that Jesus was a political revolutionary who came to deliver the oppressed and poor from their oppressors. That is far short of the biblical view of Christ. But let's bring it a little closer to home. There are many in the church today, there are many who are in Christian churches, Bible believing churches, who'd see Jesus only as the Savior from eternal punishment, and do not see Him as the Lord of all of life, the master of all of the circumstances of life, and the Lord to whom we owe our allegiance. There are many who would never go that far with Him. There are many of us maybe here this morning who fail to really live in light of who Jesus is, who fail to understand who He really is, and really apply that to everyday life and everyday situations that we find ourselves in. And so I want us to address this morning faulty views of Christ, whether it be on the part of those who may not know Him as Savior or on the part of those of us who do, let's address our faulty views of Christ. Jesus has just fed the 5,000 as we have seen in John chapter 6. And what we find that is this, that in both the disciples and the crowd, in both the crowd and the disciples, there are faulty views of Christ. In the response of both the crowd and the disciples, there are faulty views of Christ. On both sides. It's incredible, but on both sides, there are wrong views of Christ. We might expect that of the crowd, of mixed multitude of unbelievers, and a few believers, but the disciples? Yes, even the disciples. And so I want us all this morning to come face to face with our own faulty views of Christ. We're going to begin this morning in John chapter 6 and verse 14 with the failure of the crowd. We begin reading just two verses, John chapter 6, verses 14 and 15. After the people saw the sign, Jesus performed. They began to say, surely this is the prophet who is to come into the world. Jesus knowing that they intended to come and make Him king by force withdrew again to a mountain by Himself. Faulty view of Christ. Well, actually what they're saying sounds kind of good, doesn't it? I mean, they call Him a prophet. They want to make Him their king. Why is their failure in that? And why did Jesus resist that? Why did He put them off and send them away and go up into a mountain to be alone? Didn't Jesus come offering a kingdom? Didn't He come offering Himself as king? So why would He resist this offer of a kingship? Why would He resist that? What's wrong with that? Well, a closer look will reveal that there are two things wrong with what the crowd is doing. Two things wrong with their view of Christ. Both of these things have to do with a faulty view of Christ. The first thing that is wrong is their motive. Their motive is wrong. Want you to look again more carefully at verse 14. After the people saw the sign, Jesus performed, they began to say, He's a prophet. Let's make Him king. The key clue as to their motive is the first part of that verse after they saw the sign Jesus performed. What sign? The miracle of the feeding of the 5,000. After they had seen that, then they're excited about Him. Their whole reason for being excited about Christ is this. Here's a guy who can supply all our needs. I mean, if he can feed a crowd of 10 to 15,000 out here, 5,000 men and others as well, with just five little biscuits and two little sardines. Wow, guess what he can do? He can do anything, right? So, let's make Him our king. So they want to grab Him and make Him king. Why? Because look at the kind of stuff he can do. Look at his power. Look at the miracles he can form. Look at the needs he can meet for us. And so let's make him king. I think there's more than that, however, in the historical context. We noted last week that Jesus had discovered, had just learned, had been told, and the disciples had just discovered John the Baptist has been killed. Herod has put him to death. John the Baptist was very popular with the common people in Israel. He was a very popular preacher and prophet. And the people saw this as another sign of the oppression of Rome. Herod is just a puppet of Rome. And they see the senseless killing of John the Baptist as just another part of the oppression of the kingdom of Rome. And so their anger is stirred to a white hot heat of revolt against the Romans. They've just witnessed Jesus perform this tremendous miracle and it starts to click in their minds. Look at his power. Look at what he can do. We're ready to overthrow Rome. We're on our way to Jerusalem for the Passover. Verse 4 has told us, they're great throngs of people headed to Jerusalem. Let's just grab Jesus taking with us. We'll get to Jerusalem. We'll revolt against the Romans. We'll install Him as king. And we'll have all of our needs met. That was their motive. They wanted to use Him for their own ends. And their own ends, their purposes were basically temporal and materialistic. Had nothing to do with the status of their heart. It had nothing to do with eternity. It had only to do with someone who could meet our needs and overthrow the Romans. Now Jesus did come to offer a literal kingdom. No question about that. He did come to offer a literal kingdom, but it was to be a kingdom built on the foundation of a spiritual revolution, not a political revolution. Jesus came offering a righteousness that came from God. That's why John the Baptist in preparing the way for the Messiah preached the gospel of righteousness and a baptism of repentance. He was telling people you need to repent of your sin and you need to cleanse your heart. Then you'll be ready for the kingdom. These people had no room for the cleansing of the heart idea. They had no room for the repentance idea. They had no room for the righteousness stuff. All they wanted was a kingdom and a king with this kind of power could deliver. So they wanted Jesus as their king. They were using Him for their own ends. I am convinced there are people today who use Jesus for their own ends. And it is a faulty view of Christ which does that. There are many today who will accept Jesus, quote unquote, in order to get out of a jam. They want Jesus to come help them out of a jam in life and that's the only reason they want Him. And once they're out of their jam, then where are they? They don't see them anymore. Why? Because they got what they wanted out of Jesus. They were using Jesus for their own ends. There are people today who want to align themselves with Jesus, who want to be known as one of Jesus people, a Christian because they want to look good in the community. And it looks good on your resume to go to church and to be involved with Christian people. That looks good. Makes you look good. And there are some people who use Jesus for their own ends in that way. There are some people who will use Jesus in order to get married. Now, I know it's not true for any of you, not true for any of your children or people they've married. But I've heard it many a time or at least been convinced in my own heart that in the first premarital counseling session when we go over spiritual compatibility and we talk about what it means to be equally yoked and both are saved. I am convinced there are times when there are young men who will agree to everything I'm saying because they want to get married. They're using Jesus for their own ends. After the marriage is over, where are they? It's clear there's no real commitment to Christ. They never show up again. They're using Jesus for their own ends. I believe there are people who use Jesus to get votes, who call themselves Christians who align with Christian people who appease that segment of the electorate in order to get votes. They're using Jesus for their own end. There are people who use Jesus for what they can get out of it. They will align with Christ and claim to be one of his people for what they can get out of it. Health, wealth, prosperity. There's a lot of teaching along those lines today that if you come to Christ, if you call on Jesus, then He will deliver you from all your problems and make you healthy and wealthy and give you all this stuff that's using Jesus for your own ends. That is not genuine salvation. That is not genuine faith and Christ wants no part of it. As He sent the multitude away and said, I'm not here to get that kind of kingdom. He will do the same today. He wants no part of people who just want to use Jesus for their own agenda. We must come to Jesus as poor, helpless sinners who have nothing to offer and nothing to gain, not being in the family of God and our sins forgiven. And yes, the benefit of that is to be in heaven forever. But if you claim to come to Jesus just because of what you're going to get out of it, your selfish purposes and agendas, Christ wants no part of that. We have to come to Him as a sinner. We have to come on His terms, not ours. We have to come not saying, Lord, help me get out of this jam. Help me take care of this need in my life. Help me to fix up my life. And once I get it fixed, I forget about you. No, we must come to Jesus as lost and dying sinners in need of a Savior. Those are the only terms that He will accept. So their motive was all wrong. It was totally wrong. That was not the only thing that was wrong. Their method was also wrong. Not only their motive, but their method and you see it, they're in verses 14 and 15. After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, surely this is the profit who is to come into the world. So they believe He is the profit. Because the profit, not just a profit, not just a good profit, the profit. They've got a particular profit in mind. And I believe I know who it is. Deuteronomy chapter 18 verse 15, Moses told them this, Moses told the nation of Israel, the Lord your God will raise up for you a profit like me, like Moses. From among you, from your fellow Israelites, you must listen to Him. And all through the history of Israel, they were looking for that profit. They understood that that profit would be their deliverer, their Messiah. But He was the profit like Moses. And here comes Jesus. Jesus has given them bread. Moses gave them bread in the wilderness. Not through Moses. Moses delivered them from bondage in Egypt, from oppression. And here we are in bondage to the Romans in oppression. Wow, this must be the profit. If He can make bread like this, if He can make bread, I don't know, give us bread. If He can feed us, He can also deliver us from Rome. So He is the profit. But again, they're only using that for their own selfish ends. I believe Jesus is the fulfillment of that prophecy. I believe He is the profit. But there's more to Jesus than that. Verse 15 tells us that they wanted to come and make Him king. So but they want to do that by force. They're wanting to come and take Him along with them to Jerusalem and install Him as the king and overthrow the Romans. So they recognize He's a profit, the profit. They recognize He's king material. They want Him to be their king, but they're leaving out something very important. In fact, it is the critical piece of the puzzle. Jesus came to fulfill three Old Testament functions in Israel. Three Old Testament roles. He came to fulfill the role of the profit. He came to be the king, but He also came to be the priest. He is the priest, the high priest. The book of Hebrews makes that clear. He is the priest who offers a sacrifice, and they left that out. And it's the most important part because Jesus is not coming to be a political king. He's coming to be a king over an empire that has a spiritual foundation, a spiritual foundation which requires the sacrifice of his own life. And as priest, he must come and offer his own life and die for our sins in order for his kingdom to have the proper foundation. And so he comes, yes, as the profit, yes, as the king, but also as the priest. And they left that out. And there are people who still do that today. There are still people who are willing to say, Jesus is a profit. Or Jesus is a king, but will not bow to Jesus as the sacrificial lamb. The priest who offered his own life as a sacrifice for our sins as the only way of salvation. So that's the most important part of the puzzle. There are lots of religions that believe that Jesus is a profit, but they will all stop short of saying, he is the sacrifice for our sins. He is the only way for us to be saved. And so that was the problem with their method. They wanted him to be a king. They recognized he was the profit, but they wanted to make him a king in the wrong way without the proper foundation being laid. And the same thing happens today when people talk about Jesus and leave out the cross. When they talk about Jesus, but leave out his sacrifice and his death and his blood shed for our sins. That's the only way Jesus fulfills the profit or the king as if he is also the priest who offers the sacrifice. Jesus recognizes both their motive and their method is wrong. And he reacts immediately. Immediately he takes action. Verse 16 will tell us that the disciples will go down the lake and get into a boat. Some of the other gospels give us a little bit more detail. Matthew's gospel tells us this, for instance, in Matthew chapter 14 verses 22 and 23. Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side while he dismissed the crowd. After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountain side by himself to pray. Later that night he was there alone. So get the picture here. Jesus makes the disciples. He tears the disciples away from the crowd, gets them off the hill and down to the seashore and puts them on the boat. I think that indicates to me that the disciples were kind of swept up in this political fervor. In this desire to have Jesus as a political ruler and king. I mean, they were kind of caught up in the excitement of this. And so Jesus literally forces them to get on a boat, tells them to go over to the other side where he will meet them. Go ahead of me to the other side. I'm going to meet you over there. I just kind of see him kind of pushing them onto the boat, maybe even pushing the boat off the shore to make sure they do go. Get out of here. And then he dismisses the crowd. Somehow he was able to disperse the crowd and he himself goes on a mountain side and Matthew tells us he went up there specifically to pray and later that night he is still there. He's going to pray for several hours as we will see the timetable in a little bit. But please get this picture. Jesus forces the disciples out of that setting. Jesus dismisses the crowd out of that setting. Why? Because he has no desire for what they're trying to get him to do. We have a map to show you. And I forgot to bring my pointer this morning. So you have to do a little bit of imagination. Up in the top you see the little square with the the orange or red arrow pointing over to Beth Sada. That's where they were when they fed the 5,000. Little way off the shore. Jesus forces them along the blue line down to the shore and across the Sea of Galilee to the other side, the Copernum area. It's going to be about a six or seven mile journey across the north end of the Sea of Galilee to where he wants them to go. So keep that in mind. They're heading out about the time it gets dark and they're going to road to the other side in Jesus is promising to meet them there. But the reason Jesus does this is he knows this is a crisis time in his ministry. He knows the crowd will be back tomorrow. Even though he's dispersed them tonight. He knows he knows he'll be back tomorrow and he knows that they will be just as ready to force him to be their king. They'll come back with the same interest. He also knows the disciples will not understand why he's refusing that. He knows that they are confused and he knows that on tomorrow he's going to have to do two things. He's going to have to make his purpose crystal clear to the crowd and he will do that. The next episode we see in this story, Jesus will preach such a hard sermon that the crowd all goes away. But he also knows his disciples will be thoroughly confused, will misunderstand why he is rejecting this opportunity for kingship and they themselves might be in a position to question who he is. And so he's going to send them out on the lake and purposely send them through an experience to show them who he is so that by the time he preaches this sermon tomorrow their faith is strong enough to stick with him. Now that is the big picture of what's going on here. That's what Jesus is doing. It's a crisis time. He knows he has to act quickly. He has to get the disciples out of this setting. He has to disperse the crowd and then he's going to go pray and he's going to pray most of the night and I believe the focus of his prayer was what's going to happen that night to the disciples and how they're going to understand who he is and what's going to happen tomorrow when he preaches away the crowd. I think that's the purpose of this whole setting. But he deals first with the failure of the crowd in their motive and method to recognize who he really was. They had a faulty view of Christ. I hope no one here this morning has that same faulty view where you use Jesus for your own agenda, your own ends. And then once you get what you've accomplished there's no real commitment to Christ at all because you never had the right view of him to begin with. But Jesus is now going to turn his attention to the disciples. He sent them out on a boat into the sea of Galilee. It's nighttime. It's getting dark. Something's going to happen to them that Jesus himself engineers. He's placing them in a setting where their faulty view of Christ will come to the surface and he can deal with it. And he can prove to them once again who he is. It's a whole reason for what's happening on the lake that night. And so let's look at the failure of the disciples. Let's begin with the testing. The testing of the disciples in verses 16 through 18. Look at what it says. The evening came as disciples went down to the lake where they got on a boat and set off across the lake for cappernum. Not by their own choice we know from Matthew. Jesus is scurrying them along, pushing them onto the boat, pushing the boat out and getting them out of here. By now it was dark and Jesus had not yet joined them. Matthew again tells us he's up on the mountain side praying. Verse 18. A strong wind was blowing and the waters grew rough. They encountered a rough storm. Verse 19 will tell us they had rode about three to four miles. So they're about halfway across the sea of Galilee when this storm hits. And because the sea of Galilee is such a small body of water, it's not like the Atlantic ocean. You're not going to have a hurricane here. So you might wonder how could these experienced fishermen get so bent out of shape about a storm on a little lake, you know, 13 miles long and seven miles wide. Well, there's a good reason for that. I want to go over a little geography with you. I might call Brother Ben up here to help me with his recent trip to Israel. But let's look at a few pictures. Here's a picture of the northern end of the sea of Galilee and some of the mountains on the west side. There are mountains like this on the west and east side of the sea of Galilee. The sea of Galilee is 635 feet below sea level. Not as low as the Dead Sea, but it's a low point. There are mountains on either side. And if you've ever been in Israel, if you ever get the chance to go, one thing you'll notice before too long after being there is that every evening the winds start to come from the west and blow off the Mediterranean Sea, no matter where you are in the country, even in Jerusalem, you can feel that. When in Galilee, when they get to these mountains, they come up over the mountains and they push down into that depression of the sea of Galilee with tremendous force. If they're coming through a hollow, as we would say in West Virginia, a wadi, if you're in Israel, Ike, but if they were coming through a hollow, it would be even funnled more and it would be a tremendous force of wind. So much so that the sea of Galilee can actually look like the next picture. Look at the waves, not just the ones crashing on the shore, but notice the ones behind. Waves can get 10 to 12 feet high on the sea of Galilee. Now that's tough when you've got a little fishing boat like they had in those days and so the next scene, which is an artist's rendition of this story, is not far-fetched. These men were struggling with high seas on this little lake. They were struggling with waves that could easily capsize a boat of their size and remember their heading west directly into the wind. And so this is a serious storm. This is a storm that tests their skill as experienced oarsmen and fishermen and a storm that tests their faith. So storms like this really do happen and they can be very, very extreme. Just like this, the storms of life can come on us just as suddenly and with just as much ferocity. The storms of life can come at us with sometimes a battering fury and we think we are going down that our boat is not going to make it. The situation can look so dark and we wonder where Jesus is. That's exactly where the disciples were and some of you are there this morning. Some of you are in the middle of a crisis in your life, a trial in your life and it looks dark and it feels like the waves are going to take you under and you don't know where Jesus is. He's not with you, it seems. He seems to be unaware of your plight. He seems to be absent from your prayers. Your cries for help. Where is Jesus when you need Him? That's the way it feels sometimes in the storms of life. Now sometimes the storms of life come when we're disobedient to Christ. Jonah is an example of that. Jonah runs from God and God sends a storm on the sea. But not so with these men. These men are doing what Jesus told them to do. Jesus told them to get into the boat. Jesus told them to go across to the other side. They're doing what Jesus said to do. They're living for Jesus. They're being obedient to Jesus and they're caught in a storm that seemingly threatens to take them under. How do you explain that? And that's the very cry that we often have, isn't it? When storms come and we can't understand because what are we doing wrong? We're trying to live for Christ. We're trying to serve Him. I've heard many people say that. Why would God do this to me? I'm trying to live for Him. I'm trying to serve Him. Why would He do this to me? Because God sends storms even when we are obedient to Him, even when we're doing what He told us to do. It's not until Moses says yes at the burning bush that he then gets to spend 40 years listening to the complaining of the people of Israel so much so that he threw up his hands in the wilderness one time and said, Lord, why did you give me these people? It's not because he was disobeying God. It's because he had said yes to God. David, God's anointed King. God's going to put him on the throne but Saul's out to killing and David's out there hiding in caves. Does that happen to people who are trying to serve the Lord and live for the Lord? Yes, it does. Daniel wasn't thrown in a lion of dents because he was being disobedient to the Lord. He was being obedient to the Lord. He was praying. He was defying the command of a King who was trying to stop his faith out. So many times in Scripture you find that to be true that people who are suffering are not suffering because they're being chastened by the Lord. They're doing everything they can to serve the Lord faithfully and that seems difficult to accept. It seems like it shouldn't be that way. Now something to understand here and something I want us all to see is how suddenly we buy into the health and wealth gospel and the prosperity gospel because that very question, why would bad things happen to me when I'm serving the Lord? The reverse of that question is basically this. What you're saying basically is if I do right, if I'm doing the right things, if I'm serving him, if I'm faithful, God's obligated to remove the storms from my life and bless me with stuff, right? Good health, easy way in life. Isn't that what we're saying? My friends, that's the prosperity gospel. That's not the biblical gospel. The Bible never promises that when you serve Christ and little bit to him that you will never face trials. Because we are in the storm, on the lake, in the will of God, doing what God wants us to do, obeying him. And sometimes we do look around and say, why me, Lord, what am I doing wrong? And it may have nothing to do with what you're doing wrong. It may have everything to do with exactly what Jesus is doing with the disciples. Their faith must be strengthened or they will all leave him tomorrow. They will all walk out because they're going to face something tomorrow in Jesus' hard sermon which drives away the crowd which will test them to the core about do they really believe who he is. So they've got to experience on this night who he really is. They've got to see him for who he really is. Jesus is putting them in this test on purpose. It's not because they've done anything wrong. It's not because they're some sin in their lives. It's not because they're not living for Christ. They're doing exactly what God wanted them to do. What do you tell them to do? And they're in the middle of a life threatening storm. So this is where faith begins. This is where we learn. We begin to really learn who Jesus is and how much we really can trust him. It's in those storms out in the middle of the lake and the middle of the night when Jesus seems to be a million miles away. What's the response of the disciples? How do they respond? Well, their response is pretty much like ours is most of the time. They're so human. They're just like us. Where does like them versus 19 and 20? When they had rode about three or four miles, they saw Jesus approaching the boat walking on the water and they were frightened. And he said to them, it is I don't be afraid. So here they are struggling to keep the boat right side up on this lake and this storm. And Jesus comes walking to them. Matthew tells us it was the fourth watch of the night, which is between three and six o'clock in the morning. Now remember, it was just getting dark when they got on the boat. And Jesus goes up to the mountain to pray. That's why I'm saying they've probably been out on the lake at least six hours. Maybe more. Jesus has been up on the mountain praying at least six hours maybe more. And so he comes to them and they don't recognize them. They're frightened. Possibly they were influenced by the superstitious feeling of their day that when you were ready to die, the spirits from the other world came and got you. And so they may be thinking we're about to go under. Maybe this is a spirit coming to usher us into the next life. They're frightened. They don't understand who it is. They don't recognize him. The artist's rendition that we have for you of Jesus walking toward them on the water may not be too far fetched. Can you imagine someone walking toward you like that on water? They would never have expected that to start with unless it was a spirit coming to take them into death. So they're afraid. Frightened. Fear is a normal response when we feel like our boat is going down. When we feel like trials are overwhelming us. And Christ is nowhere to be found. And we don't recognize him when he does show up. So their first response was fear. But their second response was a lack of faith. Now again Matthew's gospel tells us a little bit more here about the lack of faith. Because something happens with Peter that John doesn't include in his account. But it's a well-known part of the story. Matthew tells us that after Jesus said it is I don't be afraid. Lord, if it's you, Peter replied, tell me to come to you on the water. No, I can't be dogmatic about this. But I'm just wondering if Peter's saying I want to make sure you're not that spirit coming to take us all down. I want to go another direction. So if it's really you, I want to come out that way. Bid me come to you on the water. Tell me to come to you on the water. Come he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat. Now let's give him credit. Peter often gets criticized. But how many of us would have stepped out of the boat with the waves washing over top of it? Now that's some pretty incredible faith. He got out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid. Ah, the old fear comes back. When we start looking at the circumstances around us, the wind and the waves and get their eyes off Jesus. When he saw the wind, he was afraid. And beginning to sink, cried out, at least the head presence of mind, to call out to the right person. Lord save me. Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. You of little faith, he said, why did you doubt? There's a mild gentle rebuke in that. I think Jesus understands that Peter at exercise great faith even stepping out of the boat. But he also knew and what a tremendous visual lesson this is of what they're going through. Able to trust Jesus in the moment, walking on the water, seeing him feed the 5,000. But then being tested again, looking at the wind and the waves and getting your eyes on your circumstances and off of Jesus and beginning to sink, leaving the feeding of the 5,000, being in the storm, forgetting what they had seen on the mountain and now sinking in the waves. But crying out to Jesus, you of little faith. And it's not just Peter, it's all the disciples he's talking about because all of them have expressed a lack of faith in Christ. You say, wait a second, they're about to die in the water. Yeah, yeah. But let's move on. When we see the reason for their response, the reason for their failure, then here's where the lesson comes together. Here's where we see why Jesus rebuked them. Why Jesus said you should have known better. Why you should not have responded like you did in fear and lack of faith. And this also, and I want you to, if you've been sleeping wake up because this is the important part of the message, this is where we need to see what we need to see about Christ so that we can trust him when we're out in the middle of the lake and the water is taking us under and we don't know what's going on and Jesus seems to be so far away. There are four things about Jesus they did not recognize. But I want you to see before that that that Mark tells us a little bit more of the story. Verse 21 here in John, verse 21 just tells us they were willing to take him into the boat and immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading. But notice what Mark says in Mark chapter 6 and verses 51 and 52. He gives us a little more detail. He says then he Jesus climbed into the boat with them and the wind died down. So Jesus first of all calmed the storm. Then it says they were completely amazed. Stop right there for a moment. The Greek word for completely amazed is a word that literally means to stand outside yourself. It's a fascinating word. We would say today, probably in our modern English we would say they were beside themselves with amazement. And that's the idea. They could simply not believe what was going on. They were completely amazed beside themselves. Here's the reason for they had not understood about the loaves. Their hearts were hardened. Okay. Mark is telling us what was going on here and what Jesus is going to address. There were some things they should have seen in the feeding of the 5,000. That's why he refers to the loaves that they didn't see. They didn't grasp. They may have seen it in the moment, but it didn't stick. It didn't become such a part of their thinking process that when they find themselves out in the lake, they immediately revert to what they learned in the feeding of the 5,000. It didn't stick. They didn't learn it. Why? Because their hearts were still very insensitive to these kind of lessons. And my friend, that's exactly where we find ourselves so many times. So many times we get out on the lake and we forget what Jesus has done for us before. We forget the amazing things that God has shown us about Himself. And now we get in this new situation and we've forgotten everything we were supposed to have learned in the previous trials. You see, life is all about God bringing us through a process of growth and teaching us more about Himself and there were four things they had failed to recognize. That if they had recognized they would have responded differently in the storm. The first thing they failed to recognize about Jesus was His providence. And these are the things we failed to recognize when we get in the middle of the lake and the storms about to take us under. They failed to recognize His providence. That simply means that God is in control of all the details and circumstances of life. That's His providence. Who told them to get into the boat? Jesus. Who told them to go across to the other side? Jesus. Who told them to go over to the other side ahead of me? I'll meet you on the other side. Jesus. So Jesus had basically laid out their journey for them. You're going to get into the boat. You're going to go over to the other side and I'm going to meet you on the other side. So if you get in the middle of that journey and there's some rough spots and admittedly this is a bad one. They failed to call back into the mind to back to mind. Jesus is the one who told us to go to the other side. He told us he was going to meet us on the other side. It is a lack of trusting in His providence. He's going to get the boat to the other side and if they had trusted that in the midst of the storm, it would have made a difference. They would have still been straining at the ores no doubt but they would not have been fearful. They would not have lacked faith. They would have trusted Jesus to somehow get them to the other side. But they forgot about His providence. They forgot that He was in control of the details. And Jesus does have a purpose for having them on the lake that night. They didn't see His providence. Secondly, they did not see His intercession. This is something about Jesus that we often fail to remember. I'm going to give the disciples a little slack here. They may not have known that He was praying on the mountain. There's no indication that Jesus told them what He was going to do. So we'll give them the benefit of the doubt. They may not have known that Jesus was praying. Mark's Gospel says that from the mountain, He saw them straining at the ores. So get the picture here. Jesus is on the mountain watching what's happening to them in the storm, watching their incredible struggle to keep the boat right side up and praying for them. Now, we'll give the disciples a benefit of the doubt. They may not have known what He was doing. We don't have that excuse. Because the Bible tells us plainly what Jesus is doing for us as we go through our storms in life. Hebrews 4, what wonderful words. Hebrews 4, therefore since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, He's up on the mountain, He's in heaven. What's He doing up there? Jesus the Son of God. Since we know He's up there, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. That's exactly what the disciples weren't doing. It's exactly what we have a tendency not to do. But since we know that Jesus is in heaven, for us, we can hold on to the faith that we profess to have. We can, in other words, live out our faith in the midst of the storms. Of life. So, hold firmly to the faith we profess, He says. And here's the reason why. For we do not have a high priest. High priest. Ah, there we got a little clue. The high priest is representing us before God. That's what high priests do. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses. But we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are. Yet, He did not sin. When we have a high priest who's been through human life, who's been through storms, who knows what they're like. And He's the one representing us before God. Because of that, the writer says, let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our sea of Galilee. In our time of need, in our storm on the lake. Jesus is praying for us. He's interceding for us. He's representing us before the Father. He's our great high priest. And He knows what we're going through. He understands it from experience. Because He's been here. He's been through the storms. He knows what you're going through. And you can come with all the confidence in the world that He understands and that He knows what you're going through. And He will meet those needs. He will get the boat to the other side. Chapter 7 verse 25 tells us the same thing. Therefore, He is able to save completely. Those who come to God through Him because He always lives to intercede for them. Jesus is living in heaven now to intercede for us, to pray for us. And that's what He's doing up there. They forgot His intercession. Thirdly, they forgot His wisdom. They were not trusting His wisdom. And I'm talking about His wisdom in delaying His coming. They've been out there for hours. They're struggling through this storm. Where is He? Where is He? He has delayed for hours. Jesus has a reason for them to be struggling so. And to see Him because He knows they are not ready for the sermon. He's going to preach tomorrow. He knows they're not ready. And He knows when they see the crowd all leave disillusioned with Jesus. They're liable to be disillusioned too. In fact, if you know the story, He'll look at them and ask, are you going to leave too? He knows they're not ready. And this is to get them ready. Why doesn't He come immediately? Because they need this experience to be ready for the trial of tomorrow. Sometimes we need the trial we're going through now to be ready for the trials of the future. To be ready for God to use us in the future like He wants to. And so God is wise in those things. We have to trust His wisdom when it doesn't make sense to us, when it doesn't seem like God cares or He's there at all. There is a reason in His wisdom. He knows 20 years down the road. He knows 50 years down the road exactly why you need this experience. Why you need to go through this? Trust His wisdom. And then finally, trust His power. They had just seen His power the day before. Taking five biscuits and two fish and feeding thousands of people they'd seen His power. But they're not trusting His power now. They will see it and they will be reaffirmed in their faith as to His power. They will see Him call Peter out onto the water. They'll see Him walking on the water. They'll see Peter walking on the water. They'll see Him calm the storm. And verse 21 says, immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading. I believe that means that immediately when Jesus calmed the storm, they were on shoreline. That's power. So they will see the power of Jesus. But they're not trusting what they saw in the loaves because their hearts are still insensitive. They're not trusting Him. And so Jesus must show His power again. The important lesson they will learn because they are completely amazed at what they are seeing. The other gospels tell us they say, you surely are the Son of God. They need that confidence before the sermon tomorrow. Because Jesus is going to shake everybody else's confidence whose faith is not genuine. And theirs will be shaken. But they need to see who He is. And so He gives them this display of His power. If we learn to trust His providence, His intercession, His wisdom, His power, then we will make it through the storms of life as difficult as they are with the assurance that God has a purpose for them. And He will get us to the destination He wants us to be at in His time and in His way. It's all about trusting Him. But it's all about knowing who He is so that we can trust Him. And that's where our faulty view of Christ needs to be addressed. That's where we need to come face to face with Jesus who is the Christ, who is a God who's in control of all the details, who is praying for us, who is all wise, and who has a powerful purpose in what He's allowing us to go through. We need to understand that. The question this morning is this, are you failing in your view of Christ? Are you failing in your view of Christ? Are you one of those who've never seen Jesus as the Savior? And maybe you've called out to Jesus to help you with some quick fix and straighten up your life or help you get through a political campaign or help you do whatever you're using Jesus for your own ends? That's not genuine faith. You've never come to Him as a sinner needing a Savior. My friend, that's a faulty view of Christ if you don't come to Him as a sinner needing a Savior. That is the proper view of Christ. He's the Savior. If you've never trusted Him as a Savior, I encourage you to do that today. Now, maybe you have trusted Christ. Maybe you're one of His children. But like all of us, as His children, there are times when we get out on the lake and our responses fear and lack of faith. And we haven't learned what we saw before in the feeding of the 5,000. We haven't learned who Jesus is. We need to sharpen our gaze on Him and our focus of Him. We need a proper view of Christ. That's what we need. We don't need more inner strength. We don't need more inner resolve. We don't need more of what it takes on my part to get to the other side. We need a firm gaze on Jesus Christ. That's what we need. We need to understand who He is. And when we do that, then He'll accomplish the purpose for the high waters, the rough seas, and get us to our destination. Would you bow with me in prayer? Father, thank you that you are God and so much bigger than us. So much wiser, such great power, infinite purpose. And, Lord, we failed to trust You in the storms of life so often. And help us, Lord, if we're in a boat today, out on a sea, in a storm. And we feel like we're about to go under and we look around and we don't see you anywhere. And we're not sure you're aware or you're concerned. Lord, if there are those here today in that position, I pray that they would not be frantically trying on their own to get to shore. They would be looking to Jesus. Help them to focus their gaze upon you once again and see who you are. Father, I pray if there are any here today unsaved without the Savior that they will recognize their need for Christ. It's in His name, we pray. Amen.