This morning, I actually want to again pick on another person in my family, my dad, who had a dream one night in the very early stages of him and my mom being married. And my mom awoke one night hearing and seeing my dad wriggling and kind of convulsing and moving. He was just completely frantic in bed. And it was obvious to her that my dad was having a nightmare. Now, the thing is my dad usually doesn't have dreams.
He's a very deep sleeper. But on this particular night, he was having something that was, yeah, a nightmare. So my mom freaked out and she quickly shook him to wake him up. And as she did that, he took in this huge gasp, inhaled. And he explained to her that he was dreaming, he was in the ocean. Now if you come from the Highveld in South Africa, you don't really know what the ocean is like.
So he was terrified. He was in the ocean, but the nightmare was that he was caught in seaweed and it was dragging him down. And the worst part of this was that he was inches away from the surface, but just couldn't lift his head out of the water to get a breath of oxygen. So he could see the top there and he just couldn't get there. Now the terrifying thing was that he was actually holding his breath while he was sleeping, sort of imagining that process.
Nothing he could do could free him from the sticky, slimy seaweed that was around his feet. Now what a just terrible, awful nightmare that would have been. And what a massive relief it would have been to actually wake up knowing that this wasn't actually a reality. Maybe you've had a similar sort of dream, a similar sort of event happening where you just can't escape, you're stuck, you just can't move. Terrible, terrible situation.
This morning, we're going to be looking at something similar. That happened in reality, however, to the disciples of Jesus. It was a terrifying event, a storm. Being caught in a little rowing boat, trying to row for their lives but not getting anywhere in the middle of a very big deep lake. But unfortunately, this was not a dream.
It was excruciatingly real. But Jesus uses this moment to make a point about Himself and about discipleship, more importantly. So if you have your Bibles with you this morning, let's turn to John 6. John 6, and we're going to be reading from verses 16-24. John 6:16.
When evening came, His disciples, that's Jesus' disciples, went down to the lake where they got into a boat and set off across the lake for Capernaum. But now it was dark and Jesus had not yet joined them. A strong wind was blowing and the waters grew rough. When they had rowed three or three and a half miles, they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water, and they were terrified. But He said to them, it is I. Don't be afraid.
Then they were willing to take Him into the boat and immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading. The next day the crowd that had stayed on the opposite shore of the lake realised that only one boat had been there and that Jesus had not entered it with His disciples, but that they had gone away alone. Then some boats from Tiberias landed near the place where the people had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. Once the crowd realised that neither Jesus nor His disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum in search of Jesus.
So far our reading. To get the significance of this passage, we need to do a little bit of context work again. So we need to get our geography correct. Here we have the story of the disciples caught in a very dangerous situation. They were about three or four, three or three and a half, John says, miles into or onto the sea or lake.
That's about five or six kilometres. The Sea of Galilee, which is a lake, is actually pretty big. It's a big, big lake. It's actually widely known that on stormy nights, this lake can get pretty rough. It's a freshwater lake, and it's about 21 kilometres long and 13 kilometres wide.
You can just imagine it's pretty big. It is like an ocean, like a sea. It's not your average run of the mill lake. It's massive. I'm gonna put up a photo of just sort of a glimpse of what the Sea of Galilee looks like.
That's the Sea of Galilee. The disciples were on their way to a place called Capernaum, which looks like this. Capernaum was built right on the coastline of the Sea of Galilee, a thriving metropolis, a bit of a hub for the Galilee region. And so the disciples were on their way there across from the other side in Galilee. We know that from Luke's Gospel, Jesus was sailing from the town of Bethsaida, which was the hometown of Peter.
And so they were sailing quite a long way trying to get to this place called Capernaum. John tells us that a storm came up. A storm came up. But in Matthew's account, we get more of a detail on the ferocity. John just says a big wind came up, but Matthew tells us a little bit more.
In Matthew 14, it says the boat was buffeted, was pounded by the waves due to the strong wind. It was pretty serious stuff. It was pretty serious stuff. Now it would have been a lot better, and if you're on the Sea of Galilee nowadays, you'll see a lot of nice boats and so on. It would have been nice to have a 50 foot fibreglass, 75 horsepower engine boat on the Sea of Galilee, but they did not.
This is what they had, but that is a boat that has been uncovered on the, again, on the coast of the Sea of Galilee that dates back to about the time of Jesus. That is what they had. 12 men sitting in something like that. Sort of a reconstructed version looks like this one. You can see that a wave maybe a metre and a half, two metres tall is gonna get into that boat.
It's not a very reliable, sturdy looking thing necessarily to be on in the middle of a serious storm. 12 men, fully grown, squished into that boat. At the time of the storm, their sails would have been no good. No good. They would have had to row, however many kilometres.
Now, have you ever tried rowing a boat, full stop, but then doing it in a storm against huge winds carrying, again, it's a wooden boat, not fibreglass, carrying 12 men. You don't get very far, I don't think. So you're pretty much at the mercy of these waves. Pretty much at the mercy of this wind to blow you wherever it needs to take you. If the waves want to drag you further out into the lake, it will do so.
If the waves want to capsize you, then you're gonna get capsized. In life, we have those experiences as well, don't we? Times when we try as hard as we can and try as hard as we might, we just don't get anywhere. You're rowing for your life and nothing's happening. It's like bashing your head against the wall.
One of my favourite bands when I was a younger kid was Relient K. Ben, you know Relient K? One of their songs is called Forward Motion, and it goes a little bit like this. It says, I struggle with forward motion. There's a Christian guy singing this.
We all struggle with forward motion because every time I try to get some ground, I feel myself turning around again. As Christians, we are so sincere about our love for God, our desire to do the right thing, but oftentimes, we catch ourselves not getting very far, treading water. We so badly want to make our father happy, our heavenly father, but inevitably, we mess things up. Every time we gain some ground, every time we realise we have, we also realise that we've been starting to slip in some other area. Our motives for a new job start to be pure.
I'm gonna do this and this and this for God. I'm gonna do this and this and this for the kingdom. And then later we realise, wow, this job is actually owning me. It's exacting a toll on my life, my family life, my spiritual life. Our desire to be friends with someone turns out to be for our benefit.
We can misuse it. We can gain something out of it for our sakes rather than perhaps for them. We use people. We do something nice for someone and kinda hope that people will notice us for doing something nice. Our motives can really be very messy.
The disciples were sincerely trying to get back to shore so that they could be with Jesus, but it wasn't working. It wasn't working. They weren't getting closer to Him. It's in this situation that we read one of the most moving events in the Bible. It really, really is.
It's so significant, and even though John just writes it like this and says, okay, now you deal with it. But if you start unpacking this, you will just realise how amazing this is. While the disciples are desperately thrashing about in the water, they notice someone or something approaching them from across the water. Immediately, they are terrified. They don't know what is going on.
I mean, yeah, I would have been the same. They are terrified. Matthew says that they thought it was a ghost. Isn't that so human, however? When we're stressed out, we're worried about what's going on around us, we lose our minds.
Only a few hours ago, these disciples, they would have seen Jesus feed 5,000 people. Only a few hours ago, feed 5,000 people with two fish and five loaves of bread. Now they see someone that looks like Him, that should be Him, but they're so terrified they think it's a ghost. It can't be true. It can't be true.
Our eyes are tricking us. They become terrified. They're terrified of their loving master, of Jesus, the rabbi. Jesus said to them, it is me. Don't be afraid.
What amazing words they would have been. The words are even more significant, however, if we understand some very important things that John is trying to convey here. When Jesus says, it is I, the original meaning is actually really profound in the Greek. It is I, written here in verse 21, is written in Greek, Ego Eimi. Ego Eimi.
Directly translated, it says, I, I am. I, I am. The significance here is in the strange construction of the grammar. John could have written this way better. He could have written very easily, it is I.
Don't be afraid. But he writes, I, I am. So everyone assumes and everyone tries to and says, well, He must be saying, it is me. It's really bad grammar, but these words actually have very deep, significant theological meaning. Jesus is making a huge statement here.
In the Greek version of the Old Testament called the Septuagint, this was translated from the Hebrew, original Hebrew into the Greek vocabulary or Greek language in the third century. So the Old Testament Hebrew Bible translated into Greek for Greeks to understand. In Exodus 3:14, we find God addressing Moses about the current plight of the Israelites. Remember that in the burning bush? Moses asked God, who will I say has sent me?
Who will I say has sent me to get these Israelites out of the country of Egypt? God replies to Moses, I, I AM has sent you. The exact same phrasing in the Greek, I, I AM has sent you. We translate that now simply as I AM. It is so incredible that we have Jesus refer to Himself here as the God of the Old Testament.
Many people today will say Jesus never referred to Himself as God. Good teacher, good prophet perhaps, not God. Jesus refers to Himself as the quintessential understanding of who God is. I AM is here. Do not be afraid.
The God of the Old Testament, the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob. Job speaks of this I AM in Job 9:8. Saying, the I AM is the only one who stretches out the heavens and who treads on the waves of the sea. That is the I AM. But this is not the most amazing part of the story.
We have to remember the reason why the great I AM revealed Himself to Moses and to Israel. The reason I AM came to Moses and to Israel was not to just give them a nice name, give them a deity. It was to save them. It was to save them. They were in a hopeless situation in Egypt.
They were slaves of the Egyptians. And so here we have Jesus revealing God's heart for His struggling children treading water in the ocean, in the sea. We see God again coming towards His people, reaching out His hand to save His children. Don't be afraid, Jesus said, I AM. How did the disciples respond to this statement?
How did they respond to this? It says, they were willing then to take Him into the boat. Isn't that also a strange thing to say? Of course, you're gonna take Him into the boat. He's in the middle of the ocean.
Then they were willing. Then they were willing to take Him into the boat. Through the fog of their own struggling, a brilliant ray of light broke through the grey, evaporating the heavy mist that was clouding their hearts and mind. Jesus had come. God was here.
They were willing to take Jesus onto the boat. These were men on a journey to reach a destination, but they had forgotten their captain. And when they finally realised that Jesus was close, they needed to be willing to take Jesus on the journey to reach their destination. We noticed three things about their willingness. The first is that they needed to be willing to accept Jesus as God.
All of the evidence was there. They had seen the signs and the miracles. They had seen 5,000 people get fed miraculously. They heard Him teach with authority, drive out the forces of darkness with power. Everything was there in order to make a verdict, but they needed to be willing.
They needed to be willing to accept Him as God. Friends, have you found peace about Jesus being divine? Or is He still just a good man? Are you still doubting? Open your heart this morning.
Be willing to let Him convince you. If He's divine, He will make that happen. Only by hearing Him speak to your soul will you be able to have peace regarding Emmanuel, God with us. The second thing we noticed, they needed to be willing to let Jesus save them. After all that struggle, the disciples may have been tempted to think, well, we survived this far.
Maybe if we keep thrashing, we'll get there eventually. There could have been some pride issues at stake here. I'm reminded of that advertisement on TV some years back. In the ad, this guy has a very annoying neighbour and the neighbour is always leaning over the fence giving advice. Do you remember that ad?
Oh, you know, you should be trying to do this with your barbecue. This is how you barbecue your snacks. This is how you start your lawn mower. That guy was so annoying. It's a great ad.
But why did everyone think he was annoying? Because we don't like receiving advice. We don't like being told how to do what we're doing. It's annoying when someone offers us some help, especially when it's clear we've been stuffing up. So obviously this ad being over the top was good because the neighbour was a jerk.
We could all relate to this poor guy. The disciples needed in that situation to take a step back and to realise we are actually in a huge mess here. We're really not gonna survive this on our own strength, our own skill, our own thrashing about. They had to admit, yes Lord, we are in a big mess. Please hop on board and help us out.
Lastly, we see the disciples were willing to let Jesus continue the journey with them. The boat trip without Jesus had been a tough slog, but now they realised with Jesus, they would be successful in reaching their destination. Jesus had come to their rescue. He had saved them from the storm. He had saved them from the storm, but they hadn't reached the destination that they were going to yet.
He needed to get into the boat with them until they reached that destination. Even though the boat was crammed with 12 people on there, they made room for 13, but the boat finally had its captain. The boat finally had its captain. How's your life journey looking at the moment? Ask yourself honestly, is Jesus at the helm?
Who is in control of your life? It is one thing for us to accept the salvation that Jesus brings on that stormy lake. It's another for Him to be the king and the captain of our life. Now, you may say, KJ, this seems like a lot of sort of reading into this story. You know, you're spiritualising the story maybe a little bit.
But the purpose of John in writing this is actually to show the spiritual significance of this. There was a physical event that happened but there was deep spiritual things happening under this as well. You'll see. Because John tells that after taking Jesus onto the boat, in verse 21, they immediately reached the shore. They immediately reached the shore.
They immediately reached the destination. While it might be true that Jesus performed a miracle and that they were somehow transported instantly to Capernaum, I think John is conveying yet another spiritual truth in the way that only John does in his Gospels. In Matthew's account, it says that the wind died down and that they were able to continue sailing on the water. That's how Matthew puts it. But in John it says that they immediately reached their destination.
I believe John illustrated the journey that was accomplished in the heart of the disciples. That spiritual destination had been reached. When the disciples became willing to accept Jesus as God and as their saviour and as their travelling companion, the storm inside their hearts subsided. The fog in their minds was lifted. The spiritual destination of peace and of real life that they yearn for and which every single human being yearns for was reached.
Now they tasted the still waters in their life, the gentle breeze of Jesus' love and the salvation that flowed into their souls. And after that struggle, they finally arrived. Matthew Henry, that great Puritan commentator, writes it like this. He says, the disciples had rode hard but could not make their point till they had got Christ in the ship. And then the work was done suddenly.
If we have received Christ Jesus the Lord, have received Him willingly though the night be dark and the wind high, yet we may comfort ourselves with this, that we shall be at the shore shortly and are nearer to it than we think we are. Friends, isn't it amazing how far Jesus would go to save the ones He loves? He would walk across the ocean if He needed to, and He did. Sometimes these storms are caused in our lives by others. Sometimes these storms are caused in our lives by ourselves, by our own stupid decisions, our own sin, by our own motives.
We have two choices this morning. Two choices. We may decide to try and ride this storm out, see it through, get to our destination by our own strength or we can let Jesus into our boat. Let's make Jesus part of our life. Let's make Jesus part of our life.
He is the only one that can calm the storm. He's the only one that can do the impossible in our lives and actually give us peace internally. He showed the disciples that day that He truly was not just the Messiah, the Holy One, Son of God, but that He was God Himself. I AM is here. Do not be afraid.
Jesus has the power to actually say and do what He says. That's why He did this. He did it to show His power. He did it to show His love. But we must make room for Him in our lives.
We must be willing to accept Him as God, the great I AM of our life. We must be willing to let Him save us despite our pride, despite our need for control, to make Him the captain of our ship.