Our sermon text this morning comes from John chapter six, verses 16 to 21. John chapter six, verses 16 to 21. I will open this up in prayer and then we'll go ahead and we'll get started in the text. Let us pray. Most holy and gracious Father, we do thank you that we can gather here this morning and gracious God, you do speak to us through your word. And so, Father, please speak to us through your most holy scriptures. May you speak the word of Christ to us and may you settle our hearts and may we follow him. And gracious and holy father, we know that we are helpless in receiving your revelation. And so it must come through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. You must open our minds and give us illumination. So most holy and gracious father, we pray that the Holy Spirit, that he would open our minds and move in the preacher's heart and the congregation's heart so we may all learn the glorious things. of your word. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. John, chapter 16 or six verses 16 to 21. Now, when evening came, his disciples went down to the sea. Got into the boat and went over the sea toward Capernaum, and it was already dark and Jesus had not come to them. Then the sea arose because a great wind was blowing so that they had rode about three or four miles. They saw Jesus walking on the sea and drawing near the boat and they were afraid. But he said to them, it is I do not be afraid. Then they willingly received him into the boat and immediately the boat was at the land where they were going. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. So safety is a human desire that just about all humans want. I don't think I've ever met anyone who was like, you know, I really like feeling unsafe. When you look at the history of certain like political commentaries or even historically, like when certain tyrannical dictatorships come to power or things happen, people desire safety. And in our context this morning, the passage, the disciples find themselves in a not very safe situation. And, you know, I thought I would bring this up about, you know, sometimes, you know, pastors would say, I'm not about to get political. And then they would say something and you'd be like, oh, my goodness, you got political. But I'm not really trying to do this. But, you know, there's a lot of things happening this morning. A lot of people would feel unsafe. and things are not going well for them. You know, one of the reasons why this is, is because when a society or people remove God, what will never take its place is humans will try to plan things. You know, for example, like when you see certain forms of like Marxism or whatever it is, humans will get beside and it can take its place all over the political spectrum, is that people will try to plan things. And when that gets removed from them, then it really gives them, it messes with them. And so, you know, as we come to this text, we have a text where it talks about how we actually find safety in Jesus Christ. Where is the planner? Where is the purpose? Who has planned everything that shall come to pass? What's God who has done this? And he is the one he is the Lord. He has made the creation out of nothing. He has made the cosmos. He is providentially involved with it at every microsecond, every time nothing is is away from him. And so we have safety in knowing this, this truth, that God is king. He is over everything. And this brings peace. Now, and certain some text or certain Bibles, they'll split this up differently. So if you remember from last week, we ended with John chapter six versus 15. And so in some verses, it'll have 15, kind of like, you know, there's a paragraph break. And I think this is extremely important because if you remember what happened last week, The people are trying to make Jesus into some mere political king that would shake off the yoke of the Roman government. And we had mentioned last week that Jesus was something greater than this. Jesus had a greater kingdom. It was a spiritual kingdom. Yeah, it was horrible what the Roman government was doing to the Jewish people at that time. But what was more important, the greater liberation was the forgiveness of sins and entering into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. That was the greatest relationship. And we'll get into the Passover context. But here in our passage, let's not forget about last week, because What kind of king is Jesus Christ? If he's not that political king, we brought out the redemptive Jesus Christ is king of the cosmos. Jesus Christ is God. He is the God man. What kind of king is Jesus Christ? And how does this relate to you specifically into our passage? Faith in Jesus Christ, relationship with Jesus Christ, that is the only way you can have lasting rest and safety in this topsy-turvy world. All hopes were fell, all political movements, all fads, family, everything will fade away in this creation. The only ultimate safety and rest you can have is through the king, Jesus Christ. And so we leave on and what happens in John chapter versus 15, Jesus departs and he goes to a mountain by himself alone. So what is Jesus doing? He's praying. Really quick, before we get into our verses, we're going to see how the disciples act. We're going to see ourselves in the story of the disciples. But there is a good thing in imitating Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ goes alone to pray and he wishes to be called to a life of prayer. And Jesus Christ is praying for his other disciples. And so that sets up the context for verses 16 and 21. Now, when evening came, his disciples went down into the sea. And so when evening comes, light and dark is a common theme. And we'll touch in the dark in a little bit. But evening is coming and his disciples are going into the sea. So what do we see here right here in the background of the disciples? They're in the mission of Jesus Christ. They're following God. They're doing what they're supposed to be doing. They are living after the ways of Jesus Christ. I want to say before we get into this, that many times in the book of Job answers this and we can get into other passages of scripture, is that some people would believe that if somebody is doing something bad, like why is something bad happening to them? What's because God is judging them, right? Why are they going through the storm? Why are they going through all of this hardship? Well, it's because God must have something against them. I remember a minister was telling me a story in his first church, how he had lost two children. This was many decades ago, how he had lost around two children. And one of his congregants told him that it was because he was doing something wrong. And he remember he heard that. He was like, I didn't even know how to respond to something like that. And, you know, this is on the verge of after the second child he had lost. And so I want to really context this. And the reason why I bring this out is you're going to hear stuff like this and you need to have a proper theology of the word of God. And here you see the disciples are about to go through a topsy turvy bad time. I don't know why I'm saying topsy turvy so much, but they're about to go through a harsh time and they're being faithful to God. You know what I'm trying to tell you this this morning is that you are going to be faithful to God and bad times will happen, as it says in the book of Ecclesiastes, there is a season and there is a time for everything. And right now you need to be preparing your hearts for hard times. I was thinking I was taking a class and there was a seminary professor he was talking about at a church that we had served, how there was a young woman who had lost one of her children. And she said, yes, it hurts. But because I was prepared for this, because I understand that God ordains everything that comes to pass, because I understand that God does good to me and he is a good God and he loves me. And even in the sin fallen, painful world, I have hope in the resurrection. I have hope in Jesus Christ. We need to study all of our hearts. I mean, think about the congresswoman who just opened her door and she was shot by a radical assassin man. I'm sure she knew bad times were ahead, but little did she know she was opening that door and that was it. And imagine the other hard times that's happening in our country right now are happening all across the world. We need to prepare ourselves for the darkness. Now, before I move on from verse 16, when we see disciples, a lot of times we can take this when we hear the word preached and I could be guilty of this. Well, we don't want to put everything down in like an individualistic sense. You know, this is a message for me and just me right now. And I can take home with me. I'm not against that. We'll do a lot of that. But look at the disciples, plural. They were together, right? You know, they're about to go into a boat, the Anglican church. They used to have they would they would structure their churches in the old Anglican church after a ship. And the reason why they did this is they would they would intentionally would be after, you know, one, it was art things, but also it was a theme of a battleship that they saw themselves in the storms of this life. And as they came together as the church of God, they were together going through the storms of life. And so I want to commend that view to you this morning, that as the collective people of God, as we are in union with Christ, we are going through the storms of this life together and we are going at the storms of this life together in the name of Jesus Christ. All right. So they go down to the sea. What type of sea is this? Well, it's just a regular it's a big body of lake. It's a sea. And and they were they were going into the boat and they're going to Capernaum. So once again, they're following Jesus Christ. They're doing what they're supposed to do. And then it gets dark. I'm not going to allegorize this text, you know, that'd be easy to do. Let's just take it for what it literally says right here. It got dark. Darkness can get scary. I'm sure you all have been into a scary situation. And I think sometimes that are in the dark in our modern ears or modern situation, we could. We can think it can be lost on us about the feeling of what it means to be in the dark. I remember my grandmother telling me that when she was a little girl is when light bulbs, they started having light bulbs in her house. And she said it was it was amazing. I walked through every room of the house and it was like magic happened in every room because before that they just had a lantern. My dad had me at older age anyway. And so she would she would remark about that. And the thing that that really stuck with me is just how blessed we are to have light. And so we live in this world and oftentimes we can lose the the scariness that can come from being in the dark. And so here they are. They're in a very dark situation. And it shows that Jesus had not come to them. Now, why is this important? What's Jesus doing right now? He's praying for them. Are the disciples far away from the heart of Jesus Christ right now? No, he's praying. How do we know he's praying for them? Well, Scripture and perfect Scripture. You look at John Chapter 17 where the high priestly prayer, you look at where Jesus tells Peter, Satan has sifted you, but I am here to pray for you. I pray that that wouldn't happen. And even though the presence of Jesus, he's not physically with him, he's praying right now. I think we should take comfort. What kind of king do we have a king over the cosmos? How can this and comfort us in hard situations in this life? Because Jesus is praying for you. He's praying for you right now. Jesus was praying for you before you were born. John's chapter 17. Jesus, you are on the heart of Christ. We'll go through this world and many times people will say, where was God during this? Where was God? Or I feel alone. I feel difficult. I feel away from God. Where is God? Where is Jesus Christ? He's your high priest who is praying for you. He's your high priest who is strengthening you during this situation. He is your high priest who has his heart. What does it say at the end of Matthew? Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing. And at the end, he says, for lo, I am with you to the end of the age. What was Jesus Christ doing here? You know, we have to be careful that we don't look at the Bible and say, well, this was a mythological story at a time far off. And it was a true myth. This was a historical account. These were real flesh and blood men, the disciples, and Christ had to train them up. He had to prepare them. So when they died or when the apostle, the apostle who was writing to this, when he was when he was outlawed and he was exiled on the island of Patmos, they had to be sure that Jesus Christ would not leave them. They had that promise. You have that promise this morning. Jesus Christ will not leave you. Even during the darkness of the storm, we see in verse 18, the sea arose because a great wind was blowing, and just so you understand the context. They're going out on the sea and there's mountains that surround the sea in the surrounding area. And so wind would come by and it would push down on the mountains and a storm could come up in a very quick fashion. The wind would come down and it would create a really bad storm. In fact, when it says the sea arose, that word there is getting at the sense that the sea was angry at them. That it was stirred up, that if you were on the boat, you would feel as if the very sea itself was trying to murder you or take you out. You would see you would feel it was the most unsafe situation that you could face. And a great wind was blowing. And so they're in this storm. Verse 19, they had been rowing. three or four miles. And why is it mentioned three or four miles? Because by the time if you were to you were to measure the sea and they were able to do this, obviously, if they were to measure the sea, then they would be in the middle of the lake and they were not around the shore. This was a helpless situation. They were right in the middle of the lake. They had no hope. There was no way they were jumping out of this boat. They were getting to safety. They were completely helpless, nothing they could do to save them. Well, here's one of the things throughout all of the Bible, throughout the Gospel of John, through the Old Testament, through the New, all throughout the pages of Scripture, man is helpless to save himself. God must do it. God must be the one who saves, who saves his people. The disciples left upon themselves could not save themselves. That's why you read so many places in the pages of Scripture. It seems like things are going bad and that God saves his people. Why is this important? Once again, we're still in the Passover context. We're still in the Passover context where the Israelites remember from the Old Testament, they could not save themselves from the Egyptians. It had to be God who saved them. And so as you were reading this as an original Jewish or original ethnic Jewish person who was reading this text, the Passover would have come up and you would have seen all of those verses in the Old Testament. where God walks on the waters, where God and Psalm 77, where the psalmist says, we went through the Red Sea, but God was over the creation. The thunders was crashing. The water was coming down. There was a storm around us. It was judging the Egyptians. But we were saved because we were in the hand of God. What is this talking about? It is showing that Jesus is Yahweh. Jesus is the safety. Jesus is the presence of his people. Jesus is salvation. He is the one who saves. Here's how you escape all of the calamity in this world. It's through Jesus Christ. And they saw Jesus walking on the sea, drawing near to the boat, and they were afraid. We don't know what we do. We know why they were afraid, but not exactly. Some people have said, well, maybe it was a ghost and maybe it was messing with them. I think a better way to see this text or I think scripture, a better way to see this text is that whenever you have an encounter with the divine in the Old Testament, how do people react to that? Do they are they very happy, clappy about it? You know, are they like, oh, this is great. When people encounter the divine, there is a sense of reverence when they are encountered with God. There is awe about it. There is a sense that God is here. I am a creature before the creator. I want to put forth to you this morning going on our theme of Jesus Christ being Yahweh walking on the wind and waves. over the storm, they are encountering the divine. Remember the Transfiguration, right? How did they act when they saw that, when the veil was removed and they saw fully more the glory of Jesus Christ? Were they taking it lightly? They were afraid. Peter didn't even want to go up there. Or Peter didn't want to, you know, go close. And so they are encountering this. And they are near the boat and they are afraid. I want to mention this. We're seeing Jesus Christ as a God man. One of Jesus's words or one of Jesus titles is Emmanuel. It'll come up in Christmas, you'll hear Emmanuel, you know, all the songs, Emmanuel. I don't want to snap my fingers, but what that means is that that God is with us, that God is with us. Here we see Jesus Christ. In the flesh, that word we talked about, the incarnation, him being with his people so close to them that in a storm in his flesh, he's going to get him with them with a boat. And that's what he does, he says, he said to them, it is I do not be afraid. What do we see very importantly here in verse 20? We hear Jesus speaking the word. What do we see at the beginning of John? In the beginning was the word. In the beginning was the revelation of God. Jesus Christ is the spoken word. He is the incarnate word. He is speaking to them. And he says it is I do not be afraid. But before we get into that, I do want to mention something. There is a role for something called experiential religion. Right. You know what I mean by that? You can experience Christ. You can experience the presence of Christ. And I think that reformed folk can be kind of scared of that. And I want to put to you this morning, we need not be scared of that if it is taken in the right sense. Here's a good way. Samuel Rutherford, who was a Scottish Presbyterian, he once wrote that when we go to the Lord in prayer, let us not hold the idol of experience as an idol before God. And what he meant by that is experiencing God is not bad. But if you seek experience for experience self, yes, that can become idolatry. Because what are you seeking? You're seeking yourself or you're seeking an experience of God divorced from his word. What does Jesus Christ say here? He speaks to them. Martin Luther once again wrote a comment, I can't remember, I was listening to one of his. Somebody had read one of his audio sermons, but he made this point that when you are seeking the word, don't don't seek your feelings, just seek the bare word of God, seek the promises of God, seek God by faith, and then you will fear that you will be drawn close and drawn near to God. And that context was the presence of God. How do we experience the presence of God? What's the proper way to experience God, to know God, to take him for its worth where it's to hold the promises of God? And if I can speak a little bit experiential, I will say from personal reflection and others that I've talked to that the most times when you feel the nearest to God, the presence of God when he's drawing near is when you have the promise of Jesus Christ, the promise of the word, where Christ will descend and give people comfort. Going off in the second half of verse 20, where it says, it is I do not be afraid. It is I that's that's more exodus language. You know, there's the seven sayings of of the IM statements in the book of John, where Christ is basically claiming I am God, I am God, I am God. This is not traditionally one of the IM statements, but it very well could be. It should be. Even R.C. Sproul, I was using his commentary, made that commentary years ago. I did I did a study on the IM statements. And now as I'm looking back at this text, I'm saying, well, this is a passage he is saying, Jesus saying, I am that I am. I am the existence. I am the one. I am the true being. Nothing exists, truly exists outside of relation of me. I am that I am. What does God often do when he would speak to Moses, when he would speak to his people? He would speak comfort to them because there's nothing more reassuring when you have a view of who God is and who you are and then who you are in relationship to God. And what does he claim? He says, do not be afraid. You see the tenderness of Jesus Christ. You see the love of Jesus Christ. You see the comfort of Jesus Christ. This is a promise that you can hold out your life when you go through sufferings. And yes, even all the way to death. Charles Wesley once said that Christians die well. You know, it's one of the horrid things when you see some of the great atheists and I mentioned this before, but I'll say it again, when you see some of the atheists on their deathbeds was Voltaire, some of the other atheists who were saying, I'm alone, just bring me a child to comfort me. And Darwin on his deathbed feeling the coldness and the aloneness that comes at the end of the end of all things, of this mortal existence. Many of the early church fathers used to have a skull that would sit around them, not a literal skull, you know, something that, you know, resembled the skull. And the reason why they were doing this is they wanted to be reminded that they are going to die. They are going to die. But even in the midst of that death, they could have rest and peace. Time escapes me, I could mention more on that, but let's see verse 21, our last verse, when it says that they were willing, they willingly received him. You know, this willingly talks about it's their hearts, it's their desire. When Jesus, when the presence of Christ, when the person of Jesus Christ comes, their hearts desire Jesus Christ. They want him. They want all of him. And they want nothing but Jesus Christ. I was mentioning after when I was at a seminary, I was talking to the minister I was interning with and I told him, I said, you know, I keep preaching to the Old Testament, the Bible, and it's not as simple as this, but it keeps seeming like one of the main themes is that you give your heart to God and then you follow him. And I remember the seasoned minister was like, well, yeah, that's kind of. So that's pretty much that's kind of the heart of it. And you see that all throughout scripture, that God wants our hearts. Remember 1 Samuel, a man after God's own hearts. What does Solomon do? He gives his heart to his foreign wives and he doesn't follow after the Lord. And then judgment curses comes in. God wants our hearts. We're to give our hearts to the Lord Jesus Christ and we're to receive him. This is faith language. Receive people, you know, you've heard Jesus says this and Paul says this because Paul puts such an emphasis on receiving Christ by faith alone. Here's a receiving Christ by faith alone. Here is a faith passage. They receive Jesus Christ and him alone. So once again, how do we receive the presence of God? How do we live and how do we follow God? It is living by faith. We place faith in Jesus Christ. We place faith in his promises, that he is who he is, that God, that our triune God, he is the true God over everything. He has us. He has saved us by the blood of his by the blood of the cross of Jesus Christ. We have been we have been covered by the shed blood of Jesus Christ. And now we are in the ark of Jesus Christ. I said earlier, I didn't want to alliterate too much because I thought the darkness would go too far. But I don't think this is going too far, because one of the things that all of the scripture is the ark. That Jesus Christ is the ark, that you are hidden, hidden inside of him, you are covered by him, you are clothed in his righteousness, you are united to him, you are in Jesus Christ and he is in you. How do you know that you're going to be safe? Because you are in Jesus Christ, he covers you with his hands. And immediately the boat was at land and they were going. There's different interpretations. Was this a miracle? Was this meaning they felt no other issues? Whatever you were to take on this passage, the main point of the last part of that verse is the trouble ceased. When Jesus Christ came to them, All of the troubles fade away. The storm faded. All of the troubles, all of their unbelieving hearts, their hearts were resting in Christ. They were resting with Jesus Christ. They were with Jesus Christ. They were communing with him. They were enjoying him. And they reached their final destination. As we conclude here, I'm going to give once again another corporate exhortation When we place our faith in Jesus Christ, when he saves us, his resurrection, he's the first fruits. His resurrection is our resurrection. His life is our life. His death is our death. He represents us. We have a full comforting promise. As far as Peter says, it's a living hope. Andrew Murray once said, a dead Christ, I must do everything for a living Christ does everything for me. And it's just a great quote, right? Jesus Christ is a living promise. As we are journeying in this world, we are in the ark of Jesus Christ. One day we will draw our last breath, which, by the way, that's why these things are so popular. One of the reasons why these things are so popular right now. Yeah, the algorithms are addictive, but people have to find a way not to be confronted with their own mentality. So they keep running to these trinkets and these things distracting us. Humans do not like silence. Humans do not like silence. But in the silence, we can hear the spoken words of Christ who comforts us that we will reach the shores of eternity. We will reach our end goal, our end goal with Jesus Christ, should the Lord take us before he returns. And in this new world, when Christ comes again and renews this world in his in his second coming, we have a promise that we are with Jesus Christ. So in summary of all of this, how can you take comfort? You could take comfort that Jesus Christ is the true king. He is the king over the cosmos. He has authority over all of this creation. Everything that he says is true. And this should comfort you throughout all of your life, in the good seasons and in the bad seasons, that Jesus Christ is the true king. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, let us pray. Our gracious and holy father, we thank you that you are a good father and you comfort us. We thank you that Jesus Christ is the God man. He is the mediator. He is the king. And because of his kingship and because we are united to him, we have ultimate victory. over this world and over all the forces. We thank you for saving us from our sin. We thank you that when you were when we were helpless, Jesus Christ died for us and saved us. So gracious father, may we have comfort in your promises. May we love you and gracious and holy God stir our hearts to love you. Store our hearts to desire you above anything in this world. May we desire you. May we commune with you. And gracious and holy father, may you send the spirit upon our lives. May we have refreshing senses of the person of the Holy Spirit and the promise of Jesus Christ. And may we have this hope and may you impress this hope upon our hearts. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.