The Laboratory of Life

Good afternoon, everyone. Hello. Hi. Okay. All right. Just want to make sure everybody's still awake out here. It's good to be with you on this rainy 4th of July weekend. This has been a soaker. I had someone set to water our pots on our back deck while we were gone this weekend, and I don't think they probably had to make a trip over at all because of the rain down in Cincinnati.

They had to even cancel a Red's Ball game on the 4th, so they probably haven't had to do any watering in my house. We even canceled a picnic we were supposed to have tomorrow in Cincinnati just in case it would rain again, which I guess the forecast was supposed to do so. We came up to, again, be with our family and one of our sons and his family came over from Indianapolis, and we had a nice family reunion on the 4th of July yesterday, so it's been a very relaxing weekend. I hope yours has been an enjoyable one as well. I might make just a few comments before I get into my message.

I had read John Miller's email last night. I guess that was an email that went to everyone in the church, and Andy made a comment about the 150th anniversary over in Gettysburg. I, too, am a student of history, and particularly American history. I've been to the Gettysburg Battlefield a couple of times over the years, and there's one comment I would add to what he made. That battle was the largest battle on the North American continent, certainly the most significant during the Civil War. As I study, I've always studied history and American history.

I've always wondered and tried to make connections in terms of biblical prophecy with the understandings that we have from the Scriptures about America and the English-speaking peoples and the promises to Abraham. Certain connections, I think, can be made legitimately without stretching too much or reading too much into various things. As I've studied the Battle of Gettysburg, I do realize not only was it the largest and most significant in that war, but it was also significant in that that battle in that war determined that America would remain together as a single nation. I think we all recognize the war between the states.

As my mother taught it to me, she was a good lady from Alabama, and it was not a civil war, it was a war between the states, and the South still won in her eyes. But anyway, that's another story.

That battle really determined that America would stay together as one nation rather than break into two. Lee invaded the North, went into Pennsylvania during that time. He'd been on a roll militarily, and he was trying to strike a death blow and probably hoping that they could then reach an agreement in the war, and the Confederate States of America would then be a separate nation as apart from the rest of the states.

Had they won that battle, there's a good case that that could have happened, and America would have been truncated into two nations. On the three-day battle at Gettysburg, on three different occasions, when you really study the details, the South could have won that battle. But because of poor generalship tactics, decisions that were made, on all three occasions, they failed. And they failed the second day because of the determination of a group of men from Maine that swept the Confederate troops off of Little Round Top. And then on the last day, Pickett's Charge was an effort to make one last piercing of the federal line, and they failed.

Had they done so, the way to Washington would have been wide open, as historians say, and they failed and they were repulsed. And though the war did not end for nearly two years, it was for all intents and purposes still over. It was over at that point. They never penetrated any further into the North, and that was their high watermark, as they call it. And when you understand the prophecy in Genesis 48 that Jacob made to the sons of Joseph and when he put his hand upon the head of Manasseh and said that he would be a great nation, that was a prophecy that has been fulfilled in the United States of America.

A single great power in this modern age and in time period in the modern world. There's no other nation to look at to fulfill that specific promise made upon the head of Manasseh into America. And had that not been thwarted by America becoming two countries, the South and the North, then we would have never reached the power that we did in the late 19th century on into the 20th century and become that power that liberated Europe on two occasions and stood, has stood even to this day in the position that it does.

So there was a lot decided those three days in Gettysburg, not only historically but I think prophetically as well. And to me that's what is the most interesting part of that history. Looking at the Gettysburg 150th anniversary this year kind of inspired me to do a little personal study.

I was going back into some of the battles of the Bible and reading about one in particular, the battle of Micmash told in 1 Samuel where Jonathan and his armor bearer climbed up a rugged cliff and routed a Philistine army, just these two Israelites.

And the interesting connection of what was taking place in Israel at that time under King Saul, that was a very pivotal battle in the history of ancient Israel. Some of these things we can make connections, I think, when we, what may seem like just boring history from the Bible, but when you really dig into the details and understand the times and the implications for, in that case, Israel and Israel's place within a plan of God and all the promises to Abraham meant, you see that individuals at certain times, whether it was in an ancient battle in Israel or perhaps even on a Civil War battlefield, individual decisions made certain actions possible that kept the plan of God moving forward as he intended it, even in the midst of battles like that.

So they're very, to me, a very fascinating matters to study. I might be remiss since I've opened this subject up to, if I don't comment at least on one other item in the news, I think we're all, if you are watching and understanding, trying to understand events in the world, you realize that this week the military authorities in Egypt pulled a coup and ousted the elected leader, Muhammad Morsi, in Egypt, and that nation was not going to be able to get a coup.

The nation is going through turmoils, the millions, by estimates, millions of people in the streets, at least by one report, the largest mass demonstration in history with people out in the streets demanding change led to Mr. Morsi's ouster and has once again thrown Egypt into a turmoil and certain problems in the midst of a number of spots within the Middle East that are taking place. There have been riots in Turkey in recent weeks. The Syria Civil War continues to unfold and now has taken a turn that seems to be keeping the President Assad in power, but it's drawn in larger powers, not only in the Middle East but also China, Russia, and the United States now.

Iran continues its march toward a nuclear weapon. They've just gone through a change in their presidency. With what's taking place in Egypt, it should catch our attention. Egypt is the largest Arab nation there in the Middle East, and they also have the largest standing army. Whatever happens in Egypt is important geopolitically. It just is. It bears watching, certainly from a prophetic standpoint, because when we read in Daniel 11 and the influx of the King of the South and the King of the North into that region there beginning in about verse 40, Egypt is specifically mentioned, and it is mentioned as being overrun by the King of the North.

It talks about the precious things of Egypt are there. So Egypt and Libya are specifically mentioned. Of course, Libya has had its problems in the last couple of years with the Arab Spring and the uprisings throughout the Arab world. So a lot is taking place there. And I'm not going to give a sermon on prophecy today and get too far into this subject, but I will say that because of Egypt's certainly prominent role there in that prophecy of Daniel, it is important to watch what is taking place, not that we necessarily have it all figured out. Be honest, personally, I tend to keep a half step back from certain things and just keep my options open prophetically.

I understand, I think, and we always have had a basic trunk of the tree understanding of prophecy. It's when we try to get out on the branches, the twigs, and the details that we get into trouble.

And you don't want to get out on the branches and twigs because that's where the bugs are. And you can get buggy. You don't want to get buggy when it comes to prophecy. So stay off the twigs. Just stay with the trunk of the tree. There's enough to understand there, but Christ did say to watch. And these events, especially in the Middle East, what you're seeing taking place in the Middle East the last couple of years, is a potential redrawing of the whole map in many ways.

The current map of the Middle East was drawn a little more than 100 years ago at the end of World War I when a group of the victors and some men kind of hovered over a map in Paris and drew lines as to what would be the outlines of the remnants of the Ottoman Empire that had broken up during the war.

And essentially that map, I think about 1921 or 1922 when it was drawn, is still in place today. But it was drawn by men who did not understand the region, did not understand the ethnic and tribal entities in the region, and they just drew lines for political ends. And it has worked, but it's not completely worked.

And a lot of the strife that we see, the tribal strife especially, that is beginning to erupt in Syria and other places is as a result of lines being drawn that didn't really make sense. And they separated peoples and created some artificial states. Syria is one, Jordan is another in that region. And whether or not it will come unraveled completely, that particular map will yet be seen. But we do know prophetically that there are key events to take place in that Middle Eastern region, and that's why it's important to watch, that we will understand.

And I don't think we have to thought every I and cross every T prophetically to be fulfilled in Christ's command. A lot of things will happen, and it's a matter of not being caught with unawares. And that's the most important thing. So be watching those things. We continue to write about that in our publications and broadcast about it, and it is fascinating to watch and to understand. We are going to be doing a couple of beyond today programs this week. One of them will be on the four horsemen of Revelation. We have not done one on that subject, and that one is going to be done.

And then we're also going to be doing a program on addiction to pornography. Steve Myers will be doing that program this week. And at the home office, we're just wrapping up the end of our fiscal year, and the income of the church has held very, very strong. And I want to pass along our thanks from the office and from the Council of Elders, all of you, for your support and generosity. We've ended the year above budget, and that's good. And it'll help us to replenish our reserves, and we are moving forward with our programs.

We're right in the midst of camp season right now. Plans for the Feast of Tabernacles are well underway, as you heard during the announcements. We are looking forward to a new class of Ambassador Bible Center students coming in in just a few weeks. And we have about 40, I understand, that are accepted, and that'll be another large class that we have if all of those show up.

So that will start about mid-August 19th, I think is when ABC will start this year, and we're looking forward to having all of those students in. So things are moving forward and doing well from the office and from the various aspects of the work of the church.

So we're kind of in that period of the summer, middle of the summer, where we are anticipating the feast and vacation period times and all of these matters. So, none of what I've just talked about is at all what I'm going to give as far as the sermon. Perhaps, except perhaps the Ambassador Bible Center reference could be a launching point for the sermon today. I am working off my iPad again.

It seems like this is the only place, North Canton, where I give a sermon off of an iPad because I come up here not thinking that I'm going to speak and then John Miller finds out I'm either in town or he decides to answer his email and say, go ahead and please give the sermon, which he did two days ago. I sent the email two weeks ago and told him at least I'd be here just to give him a heads up and if I'd be willing to speak, I'm willing to sit and listen as well.

It works both ways for me. So if the iPad holds up, I've got some notes.

What I would like to talk about here is a topic that I actually gave to the recently graduated class of Ambassador College Center students as kind of my version of a baccalaureate sermon for them on a trip that we had made with the chorale, the choir there over to Indianapolis in early May. And I gave the sermon on that trip and tailored it just for them. But it works for all of us. You know, Ambassador Bible Center students, as we have in our fellowship here of structure, they come in for a nine-month period to go through all of the books of the Bible and numerous other topics. We cram a lot of information into that nine-month instruction period. They go through all the Bible and we go through all the doctrines of the church. And they get a lot of Bible intensely done from about 830 every morning to 430 in the afternoon. And I don't know how they do it, but they do it. I couldn't set that long for nine months, day in and day out. It just would be too much for me. You know, for two hours each week, on the Sabbath service, it may be difficult and challenging for some of us as well.

But they do it, and they willingly do it. And we give them a lot of information. They fill out their notebooks. They put notes into the margins of their Bible. They become acquainted with a great deal of information and resources from the Bible. And if they diligently apply themselves, they can take in quite a bit. But as I was telling them, with our ambassador of Bible-centered structure, it's not an accredited institution. We give certain tests just to help encourage and to find out if we're teaching right, if they're getting the information. But it's not something that's necessarily going to show up when they're a transcript. We give tests, but they don't either pass or fail necessarily. We're fairly lenient in certain things, and that's the way it works.

But what I told the students is that for that period of nine months, they get a lot of classroom lectures, and they take a lot of notes. And they are given certain tests. But what Ambassador Bible-centered can do, and whatever testing we may do, will only help us understand and help them to grasp what they put into their head for that period of time, what they've retained.

When they leave Ambassador Bible-centered, they have to go back to their normal lives. Many go back to college, others go on to the work world, and they go about their life. And when they get out into life, just as you and I get out into life, that's when they will really be tested on what they have learned, but in a different way. They will be tested in the laboratory of life.

And when those tests come along, they'll find out, and God will find out, what they know in their heart. In the classroom, you can give a test, and you can find out what a person knows in their head. But it's when you get into the laboratory of life that you really find out what one knows in their heart when those kinds of tests come, the real tests of life. And that is altogether different. And I think Jesus gives us an example in the Gospels of how He did this with His own disciples and set us up to teach us something along the same line.

If you turn over to Matthew 14, we'll look at an episode that we're all well familiar with today. And actually, it's a dual episode beginning in verse 13 of John 14. We're going to pick up, however, the story in verse 22, but I want to just skim over quickly, beginning in verse 13, where Jesus was and what He did. Beginning in verse 13, Jesus was, in a sense, in a classroom setting, where He found Himself one day with about 5,000 people in front of Him, and He was teaching them all day, probably near the ancient city of Bethsaida on the northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee.

And as the day came to a close, the disciples came to Jesus, and they said to Him, you know, send them away. Verse 15, they might go into the village and buy for themselves food, as if the Kentucky Fried Chicken would be open late that night. Okay? Well, Jesus said, they don't need to go away. You give them something to eat. In verse 16, they said, well, we only have five loaves and two fish. That's all they had, 5,000 people.

He said, bring them here to Me. And He commanded, verse 19, the multitudes to set out on the grass. Now, this is after a day of Christ teaching, which He had done from a boat. And He'd been healing, and it had been a long day. He had them set down on the grass. He took the five loaves and the two fish, looking up to heaven. He blessed them broke and gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples gave it to the multitudes. They ate, they were filled, and they took up 12 baskets full of the fragments that remained. Now, those who had eaten were about 5,000 men besides women and children.

Quite a large potluck. And if you look carefully at the wording, it seems that the disciples were busing tables that day. They set up the food lines. They were acting as deacons. They weren't yet apostles. They hadn't really been sent out. They were still disciples, still in learning and training. And they were part of this instruction, this classroom period, too. But they did the work that day. And believe me, ladies, as you know, when you do a pitch-in potluck for one of our between meal, between services affairs that we always have in the Church of God, you know how much work it is. A lot of work goes on to get us men fed with fried chicken.

By the time we get to those chicken legs, you ladies have done a lot of work. So you know better than we do how much this was. So it was a long day. This was the classroom section of it. But the teaching wasn't over. Remember, Christ was spending an intense period, three and a half years, with His disciples to get them ready to go out and to do greater works with the Church. This was their time of training. It was a three and a half year period. And just as what we do today, you know, when you go to college, you go to classroom lectures. And then with some classes, you have your labs.

And you will spend a lot of time, in many cases, more time each week in a laboratory for biology, chemistry, physics, whatever it might be, than you will in a classroom lecture. And that's where you really get some hands-on experience in the lab, right? You cut up the frog. I love that part, cutting up the worms and the frogs in biology class.

Or you get to, you know, do the experiments and keep notes. And it's some hands-on training different from theoretical. This is how Christ was approaching His work with His disciples. He trained them. He taught them quite a bit. But He also gave them practical lab experience. And here, beginning in verse 22, we're going to see what He did. If you pick up the story in verse 22, immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat.

Now, we're going to go ahead and I'm just going to read through verse 33, set the stage for this story and the lessons that we might learn from it. Because this is their time to go out into a laboratory experiment, okay? The end of this long day. So let's look at it here. Immediately, Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and to go before Him to the other side while He sent the multitudes away.

Now, the other side means, in this case, when you read this phrase in the Gospel accounts dealing with the Sea of Galilee, what it means is not that they went the entire width of the lake, which was a large lake, but what they did was they went to the other side being the other side of the Jordan. The Jordan River flows into the northern part of the Sea of Galilee. And it is at that point when you cross over from one side to the other, east to west or west to east, deblately, from a geographical perspective, you're crossing over to the other side.

So it was not the whole width of the lake, it was just basically a cross where the inlet of the Sea of the Jordan River into the sea.

And it was a short distance. They got into the boat to go before him to the other side, and they were moving basically from an east to a west direction on that northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. The multitudes were sent away. When he had sent the multitudes away, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. That area has plenty of mountains that come right down to the, near the lake at least.

And there were plenty of places that he could have scrambled up and got away from anyone just to have some time to himself.

Now when evening came, he was alone there.

But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary.

Now in the fourth watch of the night, Jesus went to them, walking on the sea.

And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It's a ghost, and they cried out for fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, Be of good cheer, it is I, do not be afraid.

And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.

So he said, Come. And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus.

But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid. And beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, Lord, save me.

And immediately Jesus stretched out his hand, caught him, and said to him, O you of little faith, why did you doubt?

And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.

Then those who were in the boat came and worshipped him, saying, Truly, you are the Son of God.

This is a well-known episode and story from the Gospel accounts.

And in it is a great deal of teaching for us. As I said at the beginning, this was the second part of the methods by which Jesus would teach.

He gave a sermon on the Mount, three chapters in Matthew. He gave other times of instruction, one just completed here.

But then, as we all know, you've got to take your lessons learned, the material that you put into your head, and you have to go out and live it. This is where the disciples had an opportunity to live and to apply what they had learned. Education is of no value, I was once taught, unless we learn how to apply it successfully in life.

And how true it is.

And this is where we see the disciples coming upon a great distress, on a great body of water, and another miracle performed, watching Jesus walk on water, Peter walks on water. But they are also at grave peril with their life in this episode.

Let's consider a few points as we come back to the story.

First of all, this story takes place on a great body of water. In Israel today, this modern state of Israel is still there. You can go, and if you ever have an opportunity to take a trip to Israel, you can go up to the Sea of Galilee. You can get on a boat, rent a time on a boat that will take you out onto the water. And that boat is roughly about the same size, perhaps, as the boat that they were in. Maybe it's a little bigger. It's motorized today. They were not on a motorized boat. But they built these boats for the tourism trade there, and they're like fishing boats.

And they're quite nice. They're an open deck. We were on one for a trip that we were on a number of years ago with a church group after the feast. We went out into the middle of the Sea of Galilee, and the captain cut the motors. And we had some hymnals with us. I think we've nimmy-grafted a few hymns.

And we had a sing-along out in the middle of the Sea of Galilee with some of the hymns from our church hymnal. And it was very memorable, very enjoyable. It happened to be a calm day. It wasn't anything like this night here. And there weren't any other traffic going by. We just had a few moments of calm, and we sang some hymns out on the Sea of Galilee, and went on our way. It is still fish to this day.

And it's recent years has actually been the water level has been going down. At least, it had been the last time I read some articles about that. I don't know if that's come back up in recent years. But there's a lot of activity around the shore, and you can see you can go to these various scenes from the Gospels and the New Testament accounts.

Have you ever stopped to think about how many great Bible stories take place centered around a boat? There's this one right here. Think back. Of course, there's Noah. He had a pretty big boat, didn't he? Jonah got on a boat running from the work that God wanted him to do. The Apostle Paul made a journey from Caesarea to Rome in the Book of Acts on a boat.

Probably one of the big barges that would have applied between Egypt and Rome in those days carrying grain to Rome. Several scenes in the Gospels occur on the Sea of Galilee, like this one here. Another well-known one is at the end of the Book of John, where the resurrected Christ has a big fish fry cooking for the Apostles, the disciples, when they come in off of the fishing trip, after his resurrection.

As you look through the Bible as well, you will also see that great waters, lakes and seas are a theme on which God teaches big and big, very big, spiritual lessons for us. Genesis 1 and verse 1, at the beginning of the Bible, says, the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. So the story of the Bible even begins over a great expanse of water. In Revelation 22, the last chapter in the Bible, it ends with a river of life flowing out from the throne of God. There in Revelation 22. One of my favorite Psalms or verses in the Psalms is Psalm 107 verse 22, where it reads, Those who go down to the sea in ships, who do business on great waters, they see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep.

There's something about a body of water that can just take you in and it can mesmerize you, it can amaze you, it can calm you, it can get you kind of terrified at the same time. Water has a way of doing that. Of course, Israel passed through the Red Sea, and the apostle Paul used that to show us that that was a type of baptism in 1 Corinthians chapter 10.

This episode in Matthew 14 is set, of course, on the Sea of Galilee. Another point to consider about this story is that it is set in the night. In fact, it is in the middle of the night when this event happens. In this case, a great wind comes up. Now, winds on the Sea of Galilee coming up to this degree creating dangerous conditions are not uncommon even today.

There have been reports just in recent years of waves created by wind upon the Sea of Galilee upwards of 12 feet high. That's a big wave. What happens, you understand the geography of the region, Sea of Galilee is kind of in a depression. It's not below sea level like the Dead Sea, but it's nestled in between mountains. On the western side, there are some rather steep mountains that come in off the plain of Jezreel and the Mediterranean Sea further to the west.

What happens is winds will come off the Mediterranean whipping down the veil of Jezreel. And because of the passes that are in this region just above the Sea of Galilee, they kind of get funneled into some of these passes and come down with a great deal of force. They burst out on the Sea of Galilee and create waves like we read about here. And it will happen very, very suddenly, still to this day.

So it's not an uncommon occurrence. And the conditions are right there for that to happen. The Sea of Galilee is really just a huge lake. Sometimes I think about Lake Tahoe in northern California as a comparable body of water in the United States to kind of understand what this is, but it is called the Sea of Galilee. But those waves still happen to this day. Now, Matthew's account here tells us that it happened in the fourth watch, which is in the middle of the night.

It's in the middle of the night that often things bad happen, don't they? You know, they say nothing good happens after midnight. You want to be at home after midnight before then. Pretty good rule of thumb to live by.

You know, you've heard of the phone call in the middle of the night when I was in the pastoral ministry. Anytime my phone rang after midnight, it was never a good call. Something bad was always on the other end. And it was usually meaning I was going to be heading to the hospital several times through the years. I'd get a phone call after midnight, and I'd be pulling my clothes on and head off to the hospital because that's sometimes when those things happen.

You've heard the phrase, things that go bump in the night. Well, that's when things happen. And in this case, that's when this storm came up. Now, there were 12 men in this boat. Here's another point to consider. Twelve disciples. Several of them were experienced fishermen. It was not a large boat. They've even uncovered, archeologically, they have uncovered a boat, a fishing boat from the first century.

They have it on display over there on the Sea of Galilee. The last trip by midnight over there, we saw this. For 12 men to have been on that boat, it would have been a bit chummy. But there would have been enough room for them to spread out and go to sleep. But that's where they were. And of course, they were a bit nervous. And even the experienced fishermen were nervous because they were in a tight spot and they couldn't get out.

What seems to have happened in this story is that they all fell asleep and the boat drifted out into the middle of the water when the waves came up. And then suddenly they were caught unawares, caught in a dangerous situation. How many of you have ever been in a boat on a body of water and suddenly the waves start coming up? And you get a little bit frightened.

I've been in that situation. And even with a life vest on, you begin to get a little nervous. I've had that happen with a small canoe. And I've been in a bigger boat on choppy waters as well. I've never been on anything like the perfect storm type of waters. I hope I never am. But, you know, especially if you're in a small boat like a canoe or a kayak and you get caught and the weather comes up quick and the water gets choppy.

And you realize you could capsize. And it's a long way to shore. You start getting scared. Even if you can swim. And, like I said, even if you've got a life vest on. Because you're in deep water, as we say. And you suddenly realize, whoa, things could happen. So you try to keep that boat upright. You try to paddle back to shore and get out of danger.

These were experienced men on this water, and they were still scared. And the waves came up, and all of a sudden they woke up and found out they were in the middle of the lake.

Christ sent them out in the water, if you remember. And it's not like He sent them out intentionally into danger. For whatever reason, their neglect caused them to drift into harm's way. My theory on this story is that they were just dog tired. As I said, they'd been serving a potluck to 5,000 people in the cleanup and everything. And they were tired. And they got in this boat, and they just fell asleep, and the boat drifted. That's my theory on why something like this would happen with experienced fishermen like Peter or John on board.

But it happened. And it leads to another question, would Christ have intentionally set them up for this? I don't think so. He did send them off, and he went up to the mountain to pray. But in a situation like this, you have to remember. And when you're looking at this metaphorically to teach us lessons about life and trials and the suddenness of danger and a testing of our faith and how we react in a dangerous situation, and when we might be tempted, rather than blame God, we always need to look back on ourselves.

Because 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 13 tells us that, "...no temptation is overtaken you, except such as is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able. But with a temptation will also make the way of escape that you may be able to bear it." That's a comforting and encouraging verse, 1 Corinthians 10 verse 13. We are tempted. Now James goes on in the book of James chapter 1, and he talks about how we're drawn away by our own sin, and we're enticed, and that gets us into trouble and temptation.

It's our situation, it's our life and our decisions that create the temptations and the tests that happen in our life. In this case, we can't blame God. We can't blame Jesus. He sent them out, and it was not necessarily his deliberate intent, but it did come up. We can't blame God when we may be tempted, as James says.

We need to always recognize our choice and our responsibility. But when we come back to the story, it teaches us a great lesson, because no matter what we do and the problems we might get ourselves into and how high the waves might be in life and how dark it might seem at times, at a time of difficulty, in a passage in our life, when we're making a transition, this often happens. Sometimes the trials happen when we go through what they call life transitions. With age, divorce can be a situation like that, the death of a mate, a critical illness. And we're going through a life transition and a loss of a job. Whatever it might be, and it's testing us, and it may be testing us over a period of time, of several weeks, perhaps several months, maybe even several years. And we're tempted to blame God. We're tempted to give up on our faith and abandon what we know, abandon ship, so to speak, throw everything overboard, go back to what we were or what we think is safe and comfortable, and things can get pretty dark. And we go through all types of challenges when we're in those situations. And yet, as we look at this story here, we see what Christ was teaching them, because in their neglect, that got them into harm's way, Christ saw it, and He came to their rescue. He went toward them. From His perch on the high mountain, He saw what was taking place, and He went toward them, because as the account shows us, they saw Him walk. Now, they didn't recognize Him at first. They thought He was a ghost. But He went walking toward them. Now, think about it for a moment. He was on a mountain, praying. The winds came up, and He saw that they were in trouble. And He went out toward them. Did He have to do that? He was God in the flesh. He could have calmed the seas, just like that. Stopped the wind. But He didn't.

He says He walked toward them. Now, that's interesting. Was that another one of His, kind of His little tricks that He had up His bag that He wanted to wow them with? It wasn't enough to feed 5,000 people with a handful of fish. Was He thinking, wait until He see this? I don't think so.

He could have swam toward them. Let's just think about it that way. He didn't have to walk on water. Let's imagine that He was an Olympic swimmer, and He could have swam through 10-foot waves. After all, He was God in the flesh. But He didn't do that either. He walked toward them. Why would He walk toward them?

Again, my opinion, I think He walked toward them so that they could see Him.

Had He stayed on the mountain and just calmed the waters and went back to praying, they might have gone back to sleep, but they wouldn't have seen Him.

Had He even swam through the waves, they wouldn't have seen Him.

But when He walked on water, they saw Him. And that's important. They had to see Jesus. Just like you and I need to see Jesus. And we need to see God, the Father. We need to see Him in our life.

We don't need to seem doing a trick to amuse us and to strengthen our faith, necessarily. We need to see Him every single day, from the total picture that we get of Him in the Bible, and to see the reality of God. The reality of a relationship with Christ day in and day out, to know that He is there and that He can be accessed, that He is our High Priest, that He is working for us, and that we have, through a relationship built day in and day out, year after year, when we get to a tight spot, we still see Him.

That's what is important. I think that's why He walked on water. So that they could see Him in the dark of night, in the midst of a troubling situation wherein they could have drowned.

And those are the times we need to see God, too, and have our eyes awakened out of a sleep and out of a stupor and clearly able to see Jesus Christ, to look upon Him, fix our gaze upon Him.

You know, they looked on Him, and initially they thought He was a ghost. They didn't recognize Him. And they had been with Him all this time, at this point.

It's not like He was a stranger. They could obviously see the figure. There's a lesson even in that.

Those even closest to Christ don't always recognize Him at times.

To recognize and have a relationship with the true Jesus Christ is a very important matter.

That's why Christ went to great length to warn His disciples in Matthew 24 against false Christs.

Those who come in My name, He said, and they will deceive even the elect, if possible.

The deception of some speaking in His name, claiming to represent Him, very cleverly masquerading with all the nobility and benevolent qualities of God, can be very, very tempting.

Here His disciples didn't see Him. It can be a challenge for us to recognize even the true Christ today at times if we are not constantly developing that relationship and aware of the power of deception.

In John 17 and verse 3 in His last prayer, Jesus essentially said that the essence of eternal life was to know the One whom the Father sent, to know you and the One whom you have sent.

He said, this is eternal life. This is eternal life. John 17.3. To know you, the One true God, and the One whom you have sent, the One whom the Father has sent.

That's eternal life. That's the heart and core, the essence of eternal life.

As we preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God, as we teach the truths of God, as we teach the truth of Scripture, and as we live it, that part of our mission and our commitment helps us to keep our eyes firmly fixed upon Christ and understanding, not only who He is, what He is, but what He's doing, and to see Him, especially in the midst of a personal time of challenge and difficulty, to where we can recognize that He's there in the middle of a night at a time of great challenge in our own lives.

Why didn't they recognize, in that moment when they awakened, why didn't they recognize the One whom they had just seen do a miracle?

Well, perhaps one of the reasons is fear. They were scared.

Fear causes thought to develop in our heart and in our minds.

Fear can cause us to lose clarity. Clarity of purpose and meaning. It can cause us to lose our vision.

If you're afraid you're going to lose your job, if you're afraid you're going to grow old, if you're afraid you're going to lose your job, if you're afraid of something that you have to do and don't want to do it, sometimes then we just get so immobilized by that fear.

We can't make the right decisions to move forward, to move out of the way, to move through the time of challenge.

Fear can freeze us in place. We can't move. And if we can't move, we can't grow. If we're not growing, we're going to lose ground.

Fear is the great enemy of faith. It really is. And to the degree we learn to conquer our fears, manage our fears, handle the fear, overcome our fear.

I don't know if I'll ever outgrow fear. Some people can do fearless things. Some people, it depends on what the situation might be. I remember the fears that I had as a kid. A lot of them I grew out of. I still have fears as an adult. We all do.

How will we handle those? That's the challenge. That's this life of faith. Fear kept 11 of these disciples from doing anything.

Fear kept them in the boat. They couldn't move. And that was a major problem.

Christ, when He was walking toward them, He issued a summons. He said, Come to Me. He was walking.

Now, another one of the Gospel accounts in the way the language is in the original, it gives the indication that actually Jesus wasn't actually walking directly in a beeline toward the boat, but He was walking on the water.

And Peter saw Him walking on the water. And it's almost as if He was walking kind of in a direction away from them, but close enough to where they could see Him.

And that, by getting out of the boat, Peter was following Him.

And so, He said, Come to Me. Peter had to go in the same direction that he was going to. And Peter was the only one that did.

Peter crawled over the boat, and as we read in the account, He actually started to walk.

And He made however many steps He took until He realized what He was doing.

And then He was overcome again by fear. And I was like, Whoa! I'm not supposed to be doing this. What am I doing? I'm walking on water.

He realized what He was doing. He had time to think about it. And all the fear came back in, and the doubt, and the uncertainty.

And you can't do this. You're going against nature. This is not happening to you. And that's when He began to sink.

When we look at this story too often, we focus upon the fact that Peter started looking around, and he started to sink.

And we forget the very fact that He actually took some steps on water. How many steps have you made on water?

I can tell you how many I've made. Zero. I can't even ski on water.

Every time I tried to kick those skis off and go barefoot, it never did happen for me.

I can ski with a big board, you know, under my foot. But I could never do barefoot skiing, the times that I would try it.

I long since gave that up, trying to do that.

But I've never walked on water. And nobody's hand went up, so I guess none of you have either.

So we're all in the same boat. We're with the other 11 disciples.

You see, Peter at least got out of the boat.

And I've heard, I haven't read the book, but I heard there's a title of a book that, to walk on water, you've got to get out of the boat.

And it's a true statement. If you're going to do something extraordinary, if you're going to do something faithful, if you're going to go toward God, you've got to get out of the boat.

If you're going to walk on water, you have to get out of the boat.

We have to get to the point where we can leave our comfort zone, whatever our comfort zone might be.

This whole way of life called the truth, following God, the church, all that we are a part of, living by the truths of God is a life of faith where we had to get out of our boat of life that we had at one point and we ventured out of our comfort zone.

Experiencing a relationship with Jesus Christ requires each of us to leave what is comfortable and to go to God, to go toward Christ.

We have to get out of the boat. That's what Peter did. The others didn't. Give him credit for that.

And he did take a number of steps before he did begin to sink, and Christ pulled him out.

He didn't let him go down all the way. He doesn't say how far he went down. Maybe he went down to here. Maybe he went down to here. Maybe he went down to here before he pulled him out. I don't know.

God will let us, at times, sink pretty deep, just to the point where we might think we're going to go under before he pulls us out.

Peter was, obviously, as we know, a unique person. He said to the Lord here in verse 28, he said, Lord, if it's you, command me to come to you on the water. If it's you.

Peter was always the one of the twelve that was speaking out, staying his mind, speaking up in a crowd. He was the one who would betray Christ.

As I've thought about Peter and studied him over the years, I've come far beyond the conclusion that Peter was the chief of...all that meant that he was the chief apostle. That's not what it meant at all.

He was a leader, certainly. And he became a leader within the ranks of the apostles.

And certainly, his story is one that's focused on before Paul's in the book of Acts.

But to say that he was the chief apostle in this and that reads into the Scriptures more than is there.

What I think about Peter and the reason that he was always in the front of the group, always the one speaking, raising his hand and leading the charge and whatever it might be, and in this case, is that I think Peter wanted the affection, attention, and the approval of Christ, perhaps more than any other disciple.

He had such high regard and respect for Jesus that he wanted his approval.

You ever had someone that you wanted them to like you? You know, when you were a kid, maybe it was a popular person in school, or the prettiest girl, or the cheerleader, or the smartest one in the class, or just the neatest, coolest kid in the group.

And you wanted their approval. And you'd be willing to do almost anything to get their attention, to get their approval.

I think that's what Peter wanted with Jesus. He, for whatever else was working in his life, he wanted this man's attention, and he wanted his approval.

And that's why he had the answers. That's why he said, I'm not going to betray you. I'll go with you all the way to the end.

And Jesus said, no, no you won't. You'll betray me three times before the rooster crows.

I think that's why he did it. And I think that's why he got up over the boat side and started walking and took the steps that he did.

You have to think big to take that first step, to go anywhere or to do anything of significance. And that's what Peter did.

He got out of his comfort zone, and so do we. We have to get out of ours.

And as long as we keep our eyes on Christ, we can stay up. We can actually walk on spiritual waters above the waves and problems of this life, or through them, or manage or maneuver with them as they will come at us.

The high waves and the danger, enough that they could scare us to death, don't, because our eyes are on Christ.

And Christ was able to be clearly seen of these men in the dark of the night and above the high waves of the sea. He didn't hide himself, and he doesn't today.

He made himself very clear to these men, and he makes himself very clear to us today, even in our little boat, called the Church of God.

And brethren, it's a little boat. It's not a big ship. I don't care whatever name you want to put in front of Church of God, or after Church of God, or in between Church of God, whatever.

It's a little boat. Very little boat. And yet Christ has made himself very, very clear to us.

And he's done so at a very critical period in our short history, in the United Church of God, and for our own life's sake.

That our hearts would not be hardened. Mark's account of this in Mark 6 and verse 52 says that their heart was hardened as if they were of one heart.

Or something else that was working there among the disciples that kept them from, at that moment, learning everything that they could.

We must make sure that our heart is never hardened.

When we look at this story, and we take it back to the context of the feeding of the 5,000, and we contrast the two episodes.

What a land-based, day-long teaching that Jesus undertook, and another middle-of-the-night, harrowing experience, more like a laboratory.

Where what they had heard and what they had been taught had to be applied in faith.

We get a real-life lesson there for all of us to understand.

Don't fear life, and don't fear any human being. Don't fear any experience.

God's taught us that. We've heard that. We've read that.

Let's make sure that we have the faith to apply it when our faith is challenged.

Don't fear the waves. Don't fear the dark. Don't fear that which comes upon us in an unexpected manner.

Don't fear any man. But fear God. Fear God. He's the one who can destroy both body and soul.

Don't fear anything else, but certainly fear God.

Be willing to extend yourself beyond your comfort zone. Push yourself spiritually and above all.

Keep your eyes on Christ. He's the one who will get us to the vision.