Episode 532: It is I | Tim Henderson

Introduction

Well, this morning, we're going to take a look at this short and honestly a little bit unusual little paragraph in John's Gospel that Bob just read to us here in chapter 6. By including it, John more or less breaks his own rules. It's a little bit of an anomaly. I've told you guys before that as John writes his Gospel, he's writing largely to compliment and to augment the record that was already out there, Matthew, Mark, and Luke were already in circulation. People knew that. So, John is writing intentionally distinct, different kinds of information that Matthew, Mark, and Luke didn't include.

For the most part, the cross shows up. There's a couple of things that you got to hit, but a lot of the details, he kind of gives different details. It's a little bit of an strange thing. Not only that, but when John records Jesus' miracles, he doesn't call them miracles. What does he call them? Signs, because they signify, they mean something, they convey information. So, in John's Gospel, when Jesus does some miraculous things, it's not just power, it's not just mercy, but it's telling us something.

The Significance of Jesus' Miracles and the Jericho of This Passage

So, John likes to link Jesus' miracles to some kind of a discourse, right? So, where you'll have, when Jesus calls the paralytic to walk, that is connected to and anticipates the day that Jesus will call the dead to walk out of their graves. When he feeds the 5,000, that is connected to a discourse about Jesus himself being the bread from heaven, right? So, what we're looking at here, it's a little bit of a strange thing. Last week, for instance, Sloop walked us through the beginning of this in John 6, the feeding of the 5,000.

And next week, Sloop is going to talk about what, you know, the conversation that flowed from that, and then right in between, sandwiched in this little pocket of seeming irrelevance is me, talking about Jesus walking on water. And you can wonder, like, why is this even here? Why does this kind of interrupt the flow when he likes to kind of connect these things?

Not only that, but this story that he's telling, there's no additional detail that we didn't already get from Matthew and from Mark, right? In fact, if anything, we get less information here. This is a more condensed version of the story. So, you might even notice, when you listen to this story, if you're used to Matthew's version of it, did you notice what was missing? Well, we didn't get any mention of Peter, in Matthew's accounting of this, is not just that Jesus walks on the water, but that Peter gets out of the boat and walks with him, too.

And John doesn't give any hint of that. That funny little detail, not only does John not talk about it, but Mark, in his account, doesn't mention Peter walking on the water. And do you know why that's kind of a strange thing that Mark's gospel wouldn't account for it? Mark is Peter's gospel. Mark was Peter's secretary. So, the gospel of Mark is really the gospel of Peter recorded by Mark.

Why Is This Passage Included?

And one of the distinguishing characteristics of Mark is that Peter always looks like a doofus, and it never includes his best moments, which is so interesting, right? So, Peter spends three years with the most unreasonably humble person who has ever lived, and he learns from him humility, and he never uses his gospel of Jesus as an opportunity to kind of take any credit to himself, but he includes all of his most egregious failings. Isn't that fascinating? Pretty interesting.

Okay, so, but John's like, "What the heck's John doing with this? Why is it even here?" And I don't honestly know why it's here, so I'm glad you came this morning. I think maybe he included it because it happened, right? And he's got to get, like, you know, we're having this, you know, miracle over here on this side of the Sea of Galilee, and we have this conversation over here. So, he's just got to include how did we get from here to here, and this is how we got from here to here.

Maybe he's including it because it just made a really big impression on him, and it would be, and we know from Matthew's account that all the disciples were completely undone by this, right? This says in Matthew 14:32, "And when they, meaning Jesus and Peter, climbed into the boat, the wind died down, and those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, 'Truly you are the Son of God.'" I mean, the whole thing must have been so shocking, you're three, three, four miles off the coast, and across the waves walks this person.

It may be that John's purpose was just to casually drop how effortlessly Jesus reveals his sovereign power. I mean, it's almost as if it's to throw away a little comment, right? And it tells us how to get there. So, I'm not exactly sure what John's motive is. Some of this stuff is a little bit easier to reverse engineer for me than this particular passage. But nevertheless, there are a couple of details that he does include that I think are really powerful and meaningful, and I want to show them to you.

The Text and What It Teaches

So it's less about, like, the broad sweep of Jesus walking on the water, and more about these two little things that John thinks to mention that I want to kind of pull out for you, because I hope they might be helpful to you or meaningful to you. So, let's take a look at it, and then I'll show you these two goodies.

So we'll start at John 6, verse 16, it says, "When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum." Now, that must have been strange to them, because Jesus doesn't get in the boat, right? He's like, "Okay, just get in the boat and go, and I'll see you on the other side." I'm sure they're like, "Well, what are you going to walk? What does that even mean?" Right? Walk around, meaning it was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them, and the sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing.

When they had ridden about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were frightened. But he said to them, "It is I, do not be afraid." And they were glad to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going.

This is mostly what Matthew and Mark tell us, just a little bit more condensed, but I want you to notice—what was their experience when they saw him? Fear. Fear, okay? Now, that may seem like a strange thing to be afraid, but I would suggest it would actually be completely terrifying.

The Fear and the Common Biblical Message

A little fun fact about me is that I have nightmares all the time, very often, frequently, repeatedly, for decades. This is one of the things about being Tim Henderson is I just have nightmares all the time, and my sweet wife, we've been married for like 35 years, and over and over and over and over for decades in the middle of the night, she's like, "Shh, shh," because I always cry out in my sleep. I wake up from some horrible, dreadful circumstance that's going on. I don't know why. I don't know what's wrong with me. I was not abused as a child. I did not fight in Vietnam. I don't know what that's all about, but I just need to know I have these dreams, but then the thing is, you know, you wake up and I don't think it's calm, and then I forget the dream. And I couldn't tell you what any of these nightmares are about. It's not like some recurring horror in my life. I'd really, it's a strange thing about me, but I had this one dream that I remember that I found absolutely terrifying, and when I tell you about it, you're going to think you're you baby, okay?

So the dream, it was like 25 years ago, and the dream was simply this. I was upstairs in my childhood home, up in my bedroom, talking to my sister, and I went downstairs into the kitchen, and there was my sister. That's the entire dream, okay? She didn't have a knife. She didn't turn into a monster. She didn't try to just eat me, but she was there, and she was also up in my room. And I didn't know this was a dream, and that doesn't happen, right? Meaning, one of these people is not my sister, and what in the world is going on, okay?

Now again, you're like, you really are a coward, okay, fine. But if that actually happened to you in real life, you'd be like, what's going on, right? Because when we experience the numinous, these things that are like spiritually, like, that are impossible, it is incredibly unsettling, to be very, very unnerving. And these guys are on the water. Jesus isn't holding a knife. He's not threatening to kill them all. But what in the heck is going on right now, right? Because you can't do this, and yet it's happening right now. And they were terrified because they are in the presence of something they cannot understand. It could not possibly control, and the rules of the universe are breaking down right now, okay?

And so, Jesus says to them something that gets said over and over in the Bible. Verse 20, "He said to them, 'It is I, do not be afraid.'" That comment is exceptionally common throughout the Scriptures. Over a hundred times, that exact phrase appears. Do not be afraid. Fear not. Don't be afraid. It happens over and over and over again, probably, because we're afraid, right? Here's a, I'll just give you a quick sample here.

Genesis 15: "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield. Your very great reward."
Deuteronomy 3: "Do not be afraid of them. The Lord your God himself will fight for you."
Deuteronomy 7: "But do not be afraid of them. Farewell what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt."
Joshua 8: "Then the Lord said to Joshua, 'Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged.'"
And then Joshua 10: "Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged. Be strong and courageous."

Marriage is contagious. Having been comforted, he now comforts others.

1 Chronicles 28: "David said to Solomon his son, 'Be strong and courageous and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you.'"

Isaiah 41: "Do not be afraid or worm Jacob, O little Israel, for I myself will help you," declares the Lord.

Jeremiah 1: "Do not be afraid of them. For I am with you and will rescue you," declares the Lord.

And then Jesus himself in Luke 12: "Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom."

Because it is everywhere, it is constant, well over a hundred times. You probably know that there are three primary negative emotions: fear, sorrow, and anger. It is certainly the case that you have experienced all three of them, but one of them might be your default.

When something bad happens, you're scared. Something bad happens, you're sad. Something bad happens, you're mad. If you have an experience that parades your life of anxiety, that's fear. It's more depression, that's sorrow. But they rarely travel alone. These things tend to group together.

Facing Fear with Jesus' Word

These things tend to group together. I don't want you to just linger here, but for just a moment, just call up your fear. Just conjure the thing that you're afraid of right now. You probably don't have to dig too deep to find it. It may be about your children, my concern, your career, your relationships, your health, your money, maybe it's your reputation, or maybe it's somebody else's circumstances. Maybe it's your country, the culture, your future, your pet, who knows, right? Whatever that thing is, just bring it up and just hang on, we're not going to stay here, but surface it.

Then I want you to notice what Jesus says, because he doesn't only say, "Don't be afraid." He gives the reason not to be afraid. Take a look at it. What's his reason? He says, "It is I." He goes, "Why did they not need to be afraid?" Because the thing that they feared turned out to be him.

What if, and just give me a little bit of rope here, what if the thing that you are presently fearing turns out to be him? It would be that in his kindness and in his wisdom, he has allowed a circumstance that you would not choose, but that he has chosen, that the very thing that you dread is an instrument in his hand to deepen you, to wean you off some unworthy dependence, to grow faith, to bring you to repentance, to develop resilience within you, perhaps to teach you to look to him.

I will say, without any embarrassment, I love it when everything is awesome. I'm a strong preference. Everything is exactly the way I want it to be and that perpetually, but I cannot avoid the conclusion. I'm 55 years old, so I've been doing this for a little while now, and I cannot avoid the conclusion that when everything is not awesome, when I am afraid, God shows up in merciful ways, very often to bring life out of death and very often to do so through some transformation in me.

Have you noticed the conspicuousness with which he uses very painful circumstances to shape you to be more like Jesus? I wonder if you have ever — he's just an exercise, throw this out there for you this afternoon. Take a half hour, sit down, and make a list of all the things that you have feared, dreaded, hated, but that turned out for your good. That with the distance of some time, you can see that perhaps it was in his hand. If you've never done that, I think that would be a profitable exercise.

My guess would be that you would discover that there are connections between the things that you have feared and the good work that God has done in your own life. And I bet if you do that, there will also be things where you find no connection. And I would just suggest you guys, the game is not over yet. We are not yet what he is making us to be. We are not yet what he's making us into. But what if you assumed that the very things of which you are currently afraid, he might say to you, "It is I." He works all things together for the good of those who love him and who are called according to his purposes.

In fact, one of my great heroes is a guy named Jonathan Edwards. He's been dead for about 400 years, but his writings are not, and he is worth understanding. He said the Christians have the best resources that we should be. We should be the happiest people in the world because what we have in Christ is sufficient to give durable joy even in the most miserable of circumstances.

Edwards offers a three-point outline that is so brilliant. And I've memorized this, I've thought about this a thousand times, and I'll just invite you to memorize it as well. Here's your three points that I think you could internalize.

Number one, our bad things turn out for good, right? It is absolutely the case that God works all things together for the good of those who love him who are called according to his purposes.

Number two, our good things can never be taken away. She'll trouble our hardship, famine, persecution, and so on, and all of these things we are more than conquerors.

And number three, the best is yet to come. And he is designed for us, we cannot imagine. Our light and momentary afflictions are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.

Memorize those three points, recite them to yourself. Our bad things turn out for good, our good things can never be taken away, and the best is yet to come. That is a recipe for durable joy.

And I just invite you to memorize it. Lord, what are you doing in my life? I don't know right now, but I trust that my bad things will turn out for good. I trust you that my best things will never be taken away, and that is really true that the best is yet to come. We should be the happiest people on the planet.

The Second Goodie and Psalm 107

Okay? That's the first thing. Here's the second goody. After kind of nonchalantly throwing out this experience of Jesus walking on the water between these two things, it just kind of doesn't really fit. He then includes a very peculiar detail. Look again at verse 21. It says, "Then they were glad to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going."

Did you notice that? Like what in the world is he talking about, right? Is this like Philip who gets transported when he's dealing with an Ethiopian eunuch and then he shows up someplace else? Maybe. I don't honestly know. It's just immediately they're there. They're out in the middle of the water and then they're at the coast.

Here's what I think John is doing. I'm not sure that he's meaning to communicate transportation, though possibly, but I think he's making a very specific allusion to one of the Psalms, in particular to Psalm 107, which you just heard read this morning. One of my very favorite Tim Keller sermons is a message that he preached on Psalm 107. Now, I've listened to about 1,000 Tim Keller sermons because he's about the best Bible teacher in the last 100 years. He's fantastic, but his sermon on Psalm 107 is particularly good, even for Keller.

For the PDF, scan the QR code or visit this URL to download the sermon on Psalm 107 for free.

What Psalm 107 is doing is it gives us four stanzas about four people groups who are suffering four very different miseries and distresses, all of whom God rescues when they cry out to him in misery. For some of these groups, their distress comes through no fault of their own. They're not culpable of their current misery. For others, it's pretty much entirely their fault, like they just completely screwed up. But each of these four groups ultimately becomes just so miserable that they cry out in their distress.

And really, you guys, that's all they contribute to their own rescue is a cry of distress, a lament of trouble, a plea for help. And then to each one, to these poor, weak and wandering people, to the rebellious, these wicked prisoners, to the foolish ones who are reaping the consequences of their own actions and then finally, to the sailors who are at the mercy of a great storm at sea, God responds with mercy. He responds to each one with unreasonable, steadfast love.

He rescues each, even those who are imprisoned for their own sin. It says that, this Psalm describes God as breaking into the prison to free them from their bondage. But the prison is his prison. He breaks them out of his own jail, so as to be both just and merciful. It's just such an odd thing that only makes sense when Jesus shows up to be for us what we could never be.

All four sections of Psalm 107 end with the same refrain:
Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of men.

Okay? Now that fourth one, the fourth stanza of Psalm 107 is the one that I think that John is alluding to in our passage here. Here's that stanza. Again, we just heard it read this morning. Psalm 107:23 says,

"Some went down to the sea in ships, doing business on the great waters, and they saw the deeds of the Lord, His wondrous works in the deep, he commanded and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea. They mounted up to the heavens. They went down to the depths. That's just describing that the waves get super tall, and the troughs, they just crash down. They're just in this horrible storm, and their courage melted away in their evil plight. They reeled and staggered like drunken men, and were at their wit's end. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He made the storm still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad that the waters were quiet, and here's the line, and he brought them to their desired haven. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of men."

The water makes mention of this, Matthew makes a bigger, bigger deal about it, that the water that Jesus walked on was not some smooth, glassy sea. It was stormy. It was windy. The waves were mounting up, right? I think John is pointing out that this Psalm 107 is fulfilled in Christ. He calms the storm. He rules over the sea, and he brings us to our desired haven.

Application

I know, I know for a fact that some of you right now are afraid. Some of you, everything's awesome. Praise God. I hope that lasts for a very long time, right? But it won't last forever, and whether it's right now, next week, six months, we all live through stormy seasons, stormy seas. If you are at this present moment, afraid, and Jesus' word to you is, not only don't be afraid, not only the consolation, the encouragement to not fear, but you guys, it's also this.

His message is, "It is I," and I wonder if you might find more courage to face whatever frightening circumstance you're in right now. If you believe that maybe, just maybe, he's behind it all, and he uses all things together for your good. I know, I don't mean this flippantly. There are circumstances in our lives where like, that is a bridge too far. I don't know how to see that his hand would be in this. I'm not smart enough to tell you how he orders his universe, but I do know that there are promises that he is at work, that he has not abandoned us, and that he may use, he does use incredibly difficult circumstances to shape us into his image.

And even though it's true that life is hard, maybe because it's true, friends, you are invited to cry out to the Lord in the midst of your distress, to wait on him to deliver you from your distress, because he still has the power to still the storm, he still has the power to hush the waves, and he still has the power to bring us to our desired haven.

Invitation and Conclusion

And I want to just make a special offer. You know this every single week when we're here, we always say, "Hey, come forward, beat with the Lord. We've got prayer ministers in the back, and you could come here." I just wanted to, just because this is the text that we're on this week, perhaps some of you, just as in the first service, perhaps some of you, this is particularly relevant. When I just make a special invitation that you might want to come forward, Sloop and I will be up front, we'll have folks in the back if you'd rather have a little bit more anonymity or for whatever you want to, whoever you want to pray with.

But are you afraid, right now? I have been afraid, I have been very afraid, I've walked through all kinds of things. Everyone in this room has walked through things, and when you're in that moment, being afraid is terrible, but being afraid and alone is worse. So, we just want to invite you. We're going to sing a song, we're going to take some time, Sloop and I will be down front, prayer ministers in the back, can we pray for you? Can we pray with you? Would it help you to verbalize, to say a lot, "This is what's killing me right now." And if so, it would be what a joy to walk through it with you, to enter into it with you.

So, I invite you to come and say, "Lord, I don't know how it could possibly be you." Or "I don't think you're ever going to bring me to my desired haven." Or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I'm just afraid right now. That's enough. That's enough. We invite you to come down and we might together see if the Lord doesn't walk with us through some really pretty scary things.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, we praise you, that you calm storms, that you walk on water. But mostly Lord, we praise you because it is you, and I pray that you might give us the courage to trust that whatever wretched thing we might be experiencing right now, that you would be pleased to use it for good, would you give us the faith to trust you, help us. Lord, we believe. But would you help us in our unbelief? We love you. We praise you. We adore your name. Amen.