Sermon Transcript — June 3, 2006
In Acts 1 we find the very final words that Jesus spoke to His disciples before He returned to the right hand of God to wait the establishing of His kingdom. In Acts 1:4 we read:
Acts 1:4 - Being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem but to wait for the promise of the Father ...
As you go through this chapter and the next one in the next couple of days as we go through this day and the Feast of Pentecost, you will note that that promise, the phrase "the promise" keeps coming back and it's an important one.
verse 4 - He said... not to depart from Jerusalem but to wait for the promise of the Father, which He said, "You've heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water but you shall be baptized with the holy spirit not many days from now."
verse 6 - Therefore ...it's an important word, we sometimes skip over the word itself but in essence the disciples recognized there is an Old Testament prophecy in the book of Joel about the giving of the holy spirit and it seems to say that this is going to take place right before the kingdom is established so that's why we read in verse 6 ... Therefore when they had come together they asked Him saying, "Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?"
Now many of the times they had come and said, "Is it now, is it now, is it now" and every time they've been told, "No, not yet." So this time they don't come in quite the same way but looking at the scriptures, saying, we think we understand what you're saying, is that what you mean, is that what you're telling us?
verse 7-8 - And He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority." But what is important for you is: " But you shall receive power when the holy spirit has come upon you."
That verse was read by Mr. McClain in the sermonette as well and he referred to that concept of power. I'm going to take that a little further today as well because I think it's an important concept as we look at the gift of the holy spirit. The word "power" - the English version of the word, there are actually a couple of Greek words involved, but the English version of the word power occurs 136 times in the New King James Version of the New Testament. It's a wonderful thing about computers, we used to have sit and count them all, now we just click a button and it tells us how many times! 136 times the concept of power comes back in the New Testament. The power is intimately connected with the gift of the holy spirit. Paul wrote in II Tim. 1:7:
II Tim. 1:7 - For God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power, of love and a sound mind.
The power of God's spirit working in our lives is an awesome power; it transforms us from what we were to a very different state. It works at the very basic level of what we are and yet we realize that God's spirit working in us is just a small sample of the power that God Himself possesses and uses in working out the plan that He has for all mankind. While we can tap into God's power, we're still very limited in what we can do compared with His power. In this world there are quite a few traits that people have that we think of as giving them power in certain ways. It may be popularity, probably a number of you have watched the latest round of American Idol and probably even more of you who have dutifully not watched it! But nonetheless, popularity certainly seems to give people a lot of influence. Sometimes it's appearance, someone who looks nice has a certain power. Sometimes it may be our mannerisms, we talk about individuals who show their power by the way they conduct themselves or hold themselves or deal with others. For some people its wealth, physical strength or abilities and in some cases even fear gives people power. Criminals have a certain power because of the fear that they engender in other people's lives. As we look around us at this world and those who have power, very often the powerful are the people whose morals are not all that high and who very often have a very selfish set of values to guide their lives.
There is going to come a day when you and I will have powers that people don't even dream of today, we will share the very power of God but we don't have that power today. We have all seen situations around us where we wish that we had the power to make things right but we don't have it. So I have a fundamental question for you today, which will be at the core of the whole message. If you had the power of God right now what would you change? You look around you and you see the situations that exist, what would you change? Now that may sound in some ways like kind of a philosophical question, the kind of thing that as you're sitting around sipping a glass of wine with your friends at the end of the Sabbath, chatting about what we've talked about during the day, you may kind of bounce that one off of one another. But I think we'll find as we go a little further that as a matter of fact, that question is a very profound one that affects the way we live our lives and the relationship we have with God. So we're going to come back to it repeatedly as we go throughout the message today.
If God shared His power with you right now, what would you change about life in this world? I think for many people probably the first thing that would come to mind would be the aspect of healing; I mean we hear prayer requests week after week of individuals who are sick, who are suffering. We all know the Griffith 's and the thought of Mrs. Griffith lying there suffering in pain is a difficult thing. If you had the power to change things, is that where you would use that power? We've all seen our friends or relatives who have suffered through sicknesses, some inside the Church, some outside, wherever it may be but we've all seen it, we've recognized individuals who suffer as they go through those difficult times. Surely that would be an acceptable way to use God's power, wouldn't it? I mean after all, when Jesus was here, He healed people and as we look at the biblical accounts it would certainly indicate that He probably healed thousands of people during his three and half years of ministry. So that must be an acceptable way to use the power of God - if you had it today, wouldn't that be a good way to use it?
But there's some questions we have to ask about that - which individuals did Jesus Christ heal while He was here? His entire ministry was in a very small little area in the Middle East and He dealt almost entirely with the Jewish people, that was His whole ministry, that's where He worked, that's what He did. Those who came to Him were Jewish people, those who came out seeking that intervention - oh there are one or two examples of exceptions to that but for the most part it was all the Jewish people. How many Greeks and Romans did Jesus Christ heal while He was here on this earth? How many Chileans? How many Chinese? How many Ibo's and Zulu's did He heal? Was it because they weren't sick? Well no, they were sick too, they weren't in any better health than the Jewish people that were around, they weren't suffering any less than those that He dealt with. But He healed some people and He used that power in that way but He didn't heal them all, how did He choose? How did He decide who should benefit from that power and who shouldn't?
If you had the power to heal right now, are there people that you would decide to not heal? See Jesus Christ made that decision! He had that power and He made that decision. How would you determine who should be healed and who shouldn't? Would you heal all the sick people in the Church? Would that be a good way to make the decision? If you had the power of God to heal, could you stand by and allow someone you loved to suffer and perhaps even die from their sickness? It's a difficult thing to do.
Just about six years ago I stood beside my fathers bed in an Intensive Care Unit and listened to that heart monitor until it finally flat lined - it was painful. If you had the power to heal, would you allow people to die? People you loved, people you cared about. Now perhaps some would go a step further and they would talk about raising the dead. If you had the power to bring a dead person back to life, who would you want to raise up? I know I mused about that a few years ago, I thought about how interesting it would be when Mr. Armstrong comes back to life, it would be great to see him again. I don't know if I want to be there when they tell him what happened but nonetheless, I look forward to the day...but who would you raise to life if you had that power? We've all known the pain of losing a loved one, we know that when they're gone they leave a huge hole in our hearts and nothing can replace that. You long to see them again and talk to them and hug them and all of those things, but you can't - they're gone. One of our widows was asked how long does it take to get over the loss of your mate? And I think the way she said it is the way just about anyone would - you don't ever get over it, you just learn to cope, you learn a different way.
Who would you raise back to life if you had the power of God? Because God obviously has the power to do that, who would you raise back to life? A parent, brother or sister, a child, friend? It's been said by those who study such things that the loss of a child is the most difficult loss you can go through, it's extremely painful to see a child of yours gone. Would you raise them back to life if you had that power?
I remember many years ago watching a play, it was on television in this case but the play was called On Borrowed Time, it was written by a man named Paul Osborn back in the late 1930's. But in the plot of this particular play, there was a young man, called him Pud, was his name, and his grandfather who was just known as Gramps, and they had a very close relationship with one another. Pud had some very unique abilities that he could wish for certain things to happen and they would. Well one day a gentleman showed up, a man named Mr. Brink and he showed up to get Pud's grandmother and left with her - and the knowledge that comes to you in this particular play is that Mr. Brink is actually death, and death came to take his grandmother away and she was gone. Not too long after that Mr. Brink shows up again and it's time to get Gramps. Well Gramps is a pretty crafty guy and he works out a plan with his grandson, he tells old Mr. Brinks, he says, "You know, before I go, I'd really like just one last apple from my favorite apple tree." So Mr. Brink agrees to climb up in the apple tree to get it and Pud makes one of his wonderful wishes that the apple tree will hold him and not let him go and sure enough, there's Mr. Brink - death - trapped in the apple tree, he can't get away, he's there. So Pud's feeling pretty good, I mean after all, I've got Gramps, he's not going to go anywhere, we're fine. But as the play develops, you begin to see that you know, if Mr. Death can't come and take them away, nobody dies and there are people who are suffering and people going through some difficult times. Finally as the play plays out they realize - Gramps comes back to him and says, "You know, you have to let him go." You have to leave, it's time. It's a painful thing to lose someone that you care so deeply about.
If you had that power, who would you raise back to life? We look around us at the news and we see the tragic suffering of the victims of crimes, natural disasters, wars, we see them all around us and we long to have the power to help them, but we don't have that power right now.
On a more positive note, what if you had the power of God to open minds to an understanding of God's truth? Again, Mr. McClain was talking about that; Mr. Evans talked about it last week, whose mind would you want to open? You look on the people that you know who don't know, who don't understand - whose mind would you open? Every year when my wife and I go to the Feast we talk about some of those in her family - I don't know why we don't talk about anyone in my family - but anyway, in her family we do and talk about how much fun they would be if they knew the truth and could celebrate the Feast with us and look forward to that and yet we can't open those minds, as much as we would like to we can't do that. We all know that prophecy tells us that the conditions just prior to Jesus Christ's return are going to be the most terrible in all of mankind's history. Who among your relatives would you like to spare from all of that? Who would you like to open their mind so they could escape those tragic days? But we don't have that power. Unfortunately even when people are converted and they are given power, sometimes they don't use it all that well. In Luke 9 there is an example of the disciples who, in this case simply thought they had power but notice the approach that's taken.
Luke 9:51 - Now it came to pass when the time had come for Him to be received up that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem.
Now the disciples are not unaware of this, you have to put all of this together but essentially you get the concept that He's told them that He's going to Jerusalem and as far as they're concerned this means it's time to set up the kingdom. He's going to lead the rebellion, He's going to fight against the Romans, all of this is coming about - they're excited, that's one reason why on the road to Jerusalem they're arguing with each other about who's going to be the greatest because it's time, it's time for somebody to be great.
So He sets His face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem:
verse 52 - And He sent messengers before His face and they went and entered a village of the Samaritans to prepare for Him. But they (the Samaritans) did not receive Him because His face was set for the journey to Jerusalem .
verse 54 - When His disciples, James and John ...you remember, sons of thunder... saw this, they said, "Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them just like Elijah did? " We've got the solution, we'll straighten this out right now and there will never be another town that doesn't accept You.
verse 55 - But He turned and rebuked them and said, "You don't know what manner of spirit you're of, for the Son of man did not come to destroy men's lives but to save them."
Now they envisioned themselves, as having a certain amount of power whether they had it or not it doesn't go on to tell us but obviously it was not exercised here. Their thought, their approach to the power they thought they had was really not right, it wasn't the proper use of power. In many ways when we consider our question, if you had the power of God what would you change, in many ways the answer to that question relates to our understanding of faith. Heb. 11:1 gives us what is probably the most familiar definition of faith. Years ago when I was growing up in a different faith, my parents and I did not know the truth at that point, I had a very good friend and I remember that every time the question came up, "What is faith?" In the little church we attended, my good friend would raise his hand because he had the answer - he knew it:
Heb. 11:1 - "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
He would recite that and they would dutifully pat him on the head and tell him that's right but nobody ever bothered to ask, what do you mean by that? Because he had no idea what it meant, he just memorized the words. He was a good fellow but he just memorized the words. I'm not saying that to put him down, I didn't have any idea of what it meant either! So he didn't know, I didn't know, none of us knew, what does it mean? What does that tell you? " Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." One of the other translations, New International in this case, says, " Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." It's not bad, that captures a sense of it a bit. The Amplified Bible builds upon that, it puts it this way: " Now faith is the assurance, the confirmation, the title deed of the things we hope for, being the proof of things we do not see and the conviction of their reality. Faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses ." That's not bad, I think we can go further but that's not bad in helping us understand what we're talking about when we talk about faith. Now I'll tie this back in a moment and you'll see how it relates to our subject.
You and I base our lives upon beliefs, which can appear to be totally without foundation, the existence of God for example. What proves that to you? What is the proof to you that God exists? As I look back over some of the things that we used to publish, The Seven Proofs of God's Existence, and so on, the one that really meant the most to me was number 6. Number six was "Answered Prayer." You pray and God answers and that's a powerful proof. It's got a problem with it in that it only proves it to me, it doesn't prove it to you. When God answers my prayer then I'm convicted and encouraged, but what is it that really proves to you God's existence? There are a lot of very intelligent people in this world who put themselves forward as agnostics, which basically means, "I don't know." Maybe He does, maybe He doesn't, you know, cover your backside to make sure in case He does, but we're not really sure about this. You believe and I believe in creation as opposed to evolution. That sounds strange to a lot of people, that sounds foolish, ignorant - in fact it's often portrayed as you know, kind of you're dwelling in an imaginary world, you're refusing to look at the facts of science. I mean after all, isn't it clear to everyone that evolution is in fact, true. And we say, no, it's not and they smile and shake their heads and say something about Luddites and so on and individuals who aren't willing to look at the truth. Scientists, educators, philosophers, the movers and shakers of society marvel at the gullibility that you and I have and our beliefs and yet those beliefs are very firmly based on things that cannot be seen, cannot be perceived, cannot be measured.
We're told later in this eleventh chapter of Hebrews , and I won't turn back to it but it's about verse 27 as it describes Moses - well let me just read it, I think we can break into verse 25, talking about Moses
Heb. 11:25-27 - ... choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt for he looked to the reward ...and then it says: By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing, Him who is invisible.
Moses' perception of God was so clear that though God was invisible, Moses could see Him, Moses could recognize Him, it was like he could see God even though God was invisible. In one sense the entirety of Hebrews 11 is a definition of faith, it's just stated and illustrated in several different ways. Notice verse 6, which says this:
verse 6 - But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
Aside from the crucial statement at the beginning of this verse, that faith is necessary to please God, this verse makes two very important points about the kind of faith you and I should have. On the surface it seems to tell us that the person who comes to God must believe that there actually is a God.
But is that really all there is to it? Is there nothing more to this than acknowledging the existence of some supernatural being who calls Himself God? If that's all this means, if that's all that phrase is talking about, then Satan and the demons must be able to please God because James tells us that they believe and tremble. Pagans must be able to please God because they believe in the existence of lots of gods so if that's all it means by saying you must believe that He is, that's pretty simple and I don't see where that sets anything apart.
I believe this clause is actually telling us something more. Could it be that the person of faith, rather than merely acknowledging the existence of a God, must believe that God is exactly what He claims to be? You see God tells us He is the Almighty, He's the Eternal, He's the Holy One, the Lord of hosts, the heart knower, there are all kinds of different titles that God takes upon Himself. He even tells us, although most people don't read it that way, He even tells us that He is, in I Tim. 1:11, He is referred to as the, in the Greek, makarios God. Makarios has a couple of meanings and it's normally translated "blessed" but the basic meaning of the word is "happy!" God says, "I'm the happy God!" How many people think of God as happy? I mean I was always brought up to think He was pretty ticked off about most things! But God says, "I'm the happy God!" Isn't that nice to know when you get on your knees and you come before God that you're coming before somebody whose actually happy! That term is used to describe God. The true believer has to believe that God is all of those things.
When I'm faced with a problem that's too overwhelming for me to even imagine a solution, it is vital for me to know and believe with all my being that the Almighty is Almighty. It's more than just knowing He's there, I need to know that He is what He says He is. If I face the possible end of this human life, then it's important for me to know that He is Eternal and that His promises transcend the time limits of this human existence. That requires much more than just simply acknowledging God's existence. When I read that phrase that "He that comes to God, if he wants to please God, has to believe that He is." To me it tells me much more than simply to say He exists, I have to believe He is what He says He is.
For most of us it's the last clause of that verse that presents the biggest challenge to our faith. The clause that says, "the true believer believes that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." Oh it's not a matter that we doubt that God is going to respond to those who are diligent seekers, it's just that we tend to question our own level of diligence. We all know our own failings, whether anybody else sees them or not, we know about them. We can always find ways we could be more diligent than we've been. Those of you that have had children who have grown to adulthood and they finally take that step away from home, whether it's marriage or they're just simply going out living on their own, don't you have, in the back of your mind this question, "How good a job did I do? How well did I prepare them? Could I have done more?" And of course, when you ask that question, Could I have done more, everybody says oh yeah, I could have done more.
When we talk about those who diligently seek God, we tend to do the same thing. Could I have sought Him more? How diligent have I really been? We find ourselves wondering if we've been diligent enough. On one level we believe the statement but we find our own faith wavering, we sometimes say, "Well I know if I had enough faith, God could..." fill in the blank. But we question our own faith.
All of us know from experience that our faith is stronger at some times and weaker at others, it's a part of our Christian experience but at those time when our faith is weak it's often because we're looking at the wrong thing, we're looking at ourselves and our failings instead of looking at God. There's a tiny three-letter word in an earlier passage in Hebrews that I think can help us understand this. In Hebrews 6:1, I really only want the last part of it but we'll read the whole verse.
Heb. 6:1 - Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God.
It's just those last three words that I want to talk about, " faith toward God ." What is faith toward God? One of the other translations calls it "faith in God." What is this, what is it talking about, what does it mean when you read that phrase? The Greek actually says something different, it's interesting, it uses, as I said, a little three-letter word for that preposition. It uses the word epi; it says " faith epi God." What does that mean, what does that tell you? The Greek preposition epi normally means "on or upon something." We use it many times in English words, we carry it over, we talk for example about an epicenter - if you have an earthquake there's the epicenter. That's not where the earthquake took place, the earthquake may be thousands of feet down in the surface of the earth, the epicenter is that spot on the surface that is right above the center of the earthquake. All of us have an epidermis - the outer layer of our skin, it's that part that is on top. You may have heard or used the term epidemic- which comes from epi plus demos which means people, it's literally a phrase that means this is something that is upon the people. It's spread among a number. Or perhaps the term epitaph, which comes from epi and the Greek word for a tomb, taphos, so it literally means "on a tomb." And epitaph is written on a tomb. The general meaning of the term, normally as it is applied, means upon, on top of something. I have a diagram in one of my Greek grammar books that shows a book sitting on a chair and it describes the relationship between the book and the chair as, the book is epi the chair. It rests upon the chair; it has as its base, as its foundation, the chair.
Now what does that mean to us if we apply it to this phrase, "faith epi God?" Faith epi God is a faith, which rests upon and has as its foundation, God. See this helps us understand why it's important for us to believe that God is exactly what He claims Himself to be. Our faith rests upon our conviction that God is exactly what He reveals Himself to be. Therefore we have faith because of what we know God to be, not what we know ourselves to be. In fact what I am, what I feel, what I perceive is all irrelevant to truth faith. Faith in God is based upon what I feel, how close I feel, how strong I feel has nothing to do with that, it has to do with what God is.
Let's give you a few quick examples to think about this. I won't even turn to these; I'll just refer to these. Titus 1:1-2 , Paul says he is writing, " in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began. " How do you know you have any hope of eternal life? Because you have a God who has perfect, righteous, unchanging character and He will not lie. You know you have hope of eternal life because God, who cannot lie, promised that to you and to me. It doesn't have anything to do with how I feel, it doesn't have anything to do with the conditions around me, it has to do with the character of God.
In Philippians 1:6 there is this wonderful promise that says "He that began a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." How do you know God isn't going to give up on you? You feel like giving up on you from time to time, you wouldn't blame God for giving up on you, but He says, "I'm not going to do it!" How do you know that's true? Because He's a God who cannot lie and He made a promise.
In Malachi 3:6 there is a famous passage where God, through Malachi says, "For I am the Lord, I do not change, therefore you're not consumed O sons of Jacob." God sent the message to the descendants of Jacob to Israel, there is a reason why you are not wiped out, it has nothing to do with your righteousness, it has nothing to do with the fact that you're descendants of Abraham, there is a promise that I made and I don't change. What an encouraging thing!
There are a lot of people who go through life, a lot of religious people who think that God changes all the time, that at one time He required you to observe the Sabbath day and if you didn't there was a death penalty and then on down the road He changed His mind and said, Oh well, it doesn't matter, whatever. God says, I am the Eternal, I don't change. My values, My standards are the same, they don't change.
Similarly in the New Testament we are told in Hebrews 13:8, " Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever." You and I are told that our goal, our hope, the thing that we should be shooting for in this life is to come to the fullness of the measure of the stature of Jesus Christ. That's exactly the same today as it was 2,000 ago and it will be 10,000 years in the future - Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, forever. It gives us a confidence.
Faith is easy when God's giving the answers that we want, and He often does because God delights in blessing His people. For a lot of people however, it seems that if God doesn't say yes to their request, their conclusion is God didn't answer yet when in fact sometimes His answer is no. In fact it takes a lot greater faith to genuinely believe God is right when He does something else. The faith to trust God when you don't understand what He's doing. Have you ever been there? The faith to trust God when what He's doing is not what you want Him to do, the faith to trust God when it appears He isn't doing anything.
In Matthew 8 we find an interesting example in the life of Jesus Christ and His ministry as He dealt with His disciples.
Matt. 8:23-26 - Now when He got into a boat, His disciples followed Him. And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea so that the boat was covered with the waves. But He was asleep. Then His disciples came to Him and awoke Him saying, "Lord, save us! We're perishing!" But He said to them, "Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?" Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea and there was a great calm.
Now when you put yourself in the spot of these seasoned fishermen who are on this lake and it's not all that big a lake, I forget the exact dimensions, seems like eight miles long and three miles wide, something like that, it's not that big a lake, nonetheless you can get some terrific storms that come through there. If you sit on that lake and you look up at the hills that are around us, it looks like cliffs dropping down but when you get on top of those cliffs, they're not cliffs, they're agricultural fields, this whole area is the result of a tremendous earthquake that dropped it down hundreds of feet. So when the wind comes up over there, it drops precipitously and you get some terrific storms that come in there. These men were used to that sea and they were used to traveling in boats and they knew how to handle it, they knew how to turn the bow into the wind to face the waves and all of those things - and they're frightened, they think they're about to die. And they go wake Him up and He says, Why do you have such little faith? And I don't know if I can illustrate it but it's like, I'm bouncing up, Well here's why! I mean I can't keep my feet here, I'm about to fall down, it's trouble to hold on, what do you mean why don't I have any faith? And He calms it down. Now I want you to notice because I stopped right there, I want you to notice what their response was.
verse 27 - So the men marveled, saying, "Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him ?"
Their response was not, How did He do that? Their response was, Who is this person? Because that was a whole lot more important than how He managed to bring it about. See in essence He looked at them and He said, Look; don't lose sight of the big picture here. These disciples did not lack the faith that He could save them, that's why they woke Him up! But what they lost sight of in the urgency of the moment was that you know, God's not going to allow the Messiah to die without getting His work done, it's not going to happen! And if He's working with these disciples, is it really logical that God is going to let them drown out here in the water before they ever do anything? Logically it doesn't make sense. When you're bouncing up and down and getting sick over the side it made a lot of sense, but He looked at this and said, You're lacking faith, don't you have any faith at all? And they said, who is this that the winds and the waves obey Him?
Now there's another account which is not the same, it's a later account, but I want to drop down to chapter fourteen, there's a parallel in Mark 6 but I think this one will be fine in Matthew 14:22.
Matt. 14:22 - Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat ...now He has just fed 5,000 people miraculously, He... made them get into the boat and go before Him to the other side while He sent the multitudes away.
He could see that because of this miraculous thing, the multitudes wanted to follow Him, they were ready to be an army and follow Him to Jerusalem and He's saying no, that's not it. The disciples were ready to say, that's right, let's organize them and lets go! So He puts them in a boat and said you guys go on, I'll take care of this and He sends the multitudes away.
verse 23 - And when He had sent the multitudes away, He went up on a mountain by Himself to pray. Now when evening came He was alone there.
verse 24-26 - But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves for the wind was contrary. Now on the fourth watch of the night (this is between 3 and 6 in the morning, they've been out there this whole time in the storm) Jesus went to them walking on the sea. When the disciples saw Him walking on the sea they were troubled, they said, "It's a ghost." And they cried out for fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them saying, "Be of good cheer, it is I, don't be afraid."
Again, you try and put yourself in their spot - they've been rowing, they are afraid they're going to drown out there and this terrible storm is going on and here He comes, strolling by! And they're a little frightened and He says, hey, don't worry, it's Me! O.K...I'm sure glad, fine, O.K!
verse 28-29 - And Peter answered Him and said, "Lord if it's You, command me to come to You in the water." And 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 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 and caught him and said, "Oh you of little faith, why did you doubt?" And when they got into the boat the winds ceased.
verse 33 - Then those who were in the boat came and worshipped Him saying, "Truly, You are the Son of God."
Their response again this time is not, who is it, but we know Who it is! We now understand. Now I think there's some fascinating lessons from this and I would like to share with you a quote I've shared with a number of people through the years. From the Tyndale Commentary that talks about this parallel passage in Mark but it makes a point that I think is so powerful and so encouraging. It says this:
"This episode is a good example of the life of the discipleship seeing as a constant experience of testing and deliverance. For it was not through stubborn self-will but through direct obedience to the Lord's command that the disciples found themselves in this plight. They were in this spot not because they disobeyed what He said; they were there because they did exactly what He said! And they're in the midst of this terrible situation. Thus the storm in no way showed that they had deviated from the path of God's will." Then the author makes this statement, which I have found so very helpful : "God's path for them lay through that storm to the other shore of the lake. Moreover it appeared as if the Lord had forgotten them, they were alone at night, making heavy weather with the rowing. This storm too was no sudden lake storm such as had preceded the calming of the waves in the previous account, but a tiring continuous headwind, necessitating steady backbreaking rowing. Then at the darkest hour, in their greatest need and in a totally unexpected way, Jesus came to their rescue. It must have seemed as if He were careless of their plight and yet the event showed that nothing could be further from the truth. They did not anticipate being in the midst of that difficulty. Now they had been in the midst of this storm before, but He was with them and they knew He could calm things down but He's not there, He's nowhere to be seen, they've left Him behind, now what ?"
Do you suppose anybody said, "I'll bet you He's going to walk out here?" No? That was an unexpected way to deal with it, that's not the way I would have figured it out, I would have thought, Well, He's up on the mountain, He can see, He'll help, O.K, I can figure all kinds of scenarios, but walking out there is not one of them! Yet obviously He knew exactly what needed to be done. Sometimes God's path for you and me runs straight through the middle of the storm because there are lessons that must be learned in the wind and the waves, lessons which can't be learned in balmy seas and calm winds.
In John 6, we'll turn back there; I'm not going to read the whole account but you'll be familiar with it I'm sure. In John 6 and beginning about verse 56 Christ is talking to those who said they were going to follow Him - not just the twelve or the group that was with Him there but a much larger group who said yes, we want to follow You, we're willing to follow You. And in this passage is where He tells them that if they're going to be followers of His, they have to eat His flesh and drink His blood. And we're told from that point forward a lot of them turned and walked away because they could not figure out what in the world He meant by that. Then we're told He turned to His disciples to ask them what they were going to do.
John 6:66 - From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more. Then Jesus said to the twelve, "Do you also want to go away?" But Simon Peter answered Him, "Lord, to whom should we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God ."
Note the reason that Peter gave for not leaving. We know who You are. Peter did not claim to understand the meaning of Jesus' words, he didn't say, No, we don't need to leave because we understand. He doesn't even say, Well it's O.K., I know you'll explain it to us after everybody is gone. What Peter understood and placed His faith in was the unchanging perfect character of the One who spoke those words. Peter was confident that he would one day understand if he didn't lose faith in the speaker. Notice in II Timothy 1, Paul talks about the difficulties he was going through. II Timothy is the last book that Paul wrote and we find that he is just about to face his own execution and he makes this statement:
II Tim. 1:12 - For this reason ...actually I want to read this to you from the New Revised Standard but you can follow it here... I suffer as I do, but I am not ashamed for I know the One in whom I have put my trust and I am sure that He is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to Him.
Paul does not say I trust because I can see how this will work out; he said I go through all of these things in confidence and faith because I know Who I trusted. His faith was not based on the around, the things that he could see, his faith was based upon God; it had as its foundation, the character of God Himself. Hebrews 6, I always find this to be a very encouraging passage and sometimes refer to it even in funerals.
Heb. 6:17-18 - Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise ...here's that promise word again... the immutability of His counsel ...in other words that He doesn't change, His counsel, what He says is not going to change... He confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before us.
verse 19-20 - This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.
What is this telling you? It says that we have before us a hope, God has given us a hope and that hope is in a sense, an anchor. Now when you stop to consider how an anchor works, when you drop the anchor down in the water, you don't know what's down there, you don't know what it's going to hook on, you drop it down because you need to be stable and that's the only way you can get stability. We're told here, that this hope, this anchor in that sense, is, as it describes it, it goes through the veil, you know the veil that separates the holy place from the holy of holies - the holy of holies symbolic of the throne of God where Jesus has sat at the right hand of God. It says the anchor goes through the veil and you can't see what's on the other side, but what's on the other side is Jesus Christ, as an anchor.
Now how does an anchor work? If you've ever been in a small boat especially, you know that when the wave and the wind come toward you, you don't want to take that on the side of the boat because it rocks and it becomes very unstable. You want to turn the bow into the wind and the waves and as long as the bow is turned into the wind and the waves, you have a fairly decent chance of going through some pretty difficult weather. I remember reading about one man describing a hurricane coming through and him putting an anchor on his boat - you run it off the bow, attach the anchor to the bow of the boat and you drop in down where its safe, there's nothing around it and when the wind comes lashing in from one direction, because the anchor is firm, the boat swings around, puts the bow into the wind and the waves and rides it out. But with a hurricane, the wind direction changes, but the anchor is firm so when the wind direction changes, the boat swings around and it puts it bow back into the wind and the waves. The anchor enables it to survive.
In a sense, what we're seeing here is that this hope that we have, based upon the promise of God, based upon the unfailing character of Jesus Christ, that hope is an anchor. You don't know what direction the winds and the storms are going to come from and neither do I. You look at your life and you trying to think, well I bet you God is going to test me in this way and the changes are good that you will never be tested that way! And if you think, well I think I've got this area pretty well taken care of, look out, here comes the storm and you learn! But if the anchor is there, then no matter what happens, you swing into the storm; you swing the bow around, you survive.
For many people I think faith involves miraculous healings, they think that, and I've heard many times through the years people say, well maybe this Pentecost, maybe God will begin to do miraculous healings now. That's nice, it would certainly be a wonderful thing if God chose to do such a thing, but we need to understand that every healing, no matter how wondrous, is by its very nature, temporary - because we're temporary. You heal someone of some terrible disease that's about to take their life and what's going to happen on down the line? They're going to die! I mean don't mean to be depressive about it, obviously we have a hope that goes beyond that, but I'm just simply saying, every healing, no matter how wonderful is by its nature, temporary - because we're temporary.
Do miraculous healings cement a person's faith? If a person experiences what is unmistakably a dramatic, divine healing, wouldn't that make that person stronger in the faith? I think virtually every minister with many years of experience has been blessed to see God intervene miraculously for His people. I think about Pentecost coming tomorrow, for me it will be the 35 th anniversary of my ordination into the ministry, well actually Monday is, but we thought it was Pentecost 35 years ago! So I kind of think of Pentecost as it! Nonetheless, as I look back over those years and think about the things that we've seen, certainly there are many many cases where I really wish God had intervened very miraculously and He didn't, He just chose to let things go in other ways.
But I can think of a few that were undoubtedly miraculous. If I looked at maybe five or six of those cases, situations where there could be no doubt in anyone's mind that God intervened miraculously, I look at what happened in those cases. In one case I remember that none of us realized what happened and it was the next day that this lady was in the hospital that God had miraculously saved her life but we didn't realize what had happened! The next day her nurse came in and said, "Well yesterday I saw a miracle." And this lady said, "Oh really, what happened?" And the nurse looked at her and said, "You didn't know? You didn't know what happened?" She didn't and after she understood, she called me and I didn't know either but there was no doubt, even in the minds of people who didn't know the truth - a miraculous event took place!
I think about those five or six that I can look back over the years and think of who received that incredible blessing of miraculous healing. You know how many remained faithful to the truth? One. The others are all gone, they're all gone. Why? Because looking to such things is looking to the physical, the visible instead of looking to God. It's living by sight, experience, perception instead of faith. There's going to come a time when you and I will share in God's power and be able to right the wrongs of this evil world and the gift of God's spirit is a down payment of that power.
So how do we answer our question? If you had the power of God, what would you change? If you had the power of God, right now, what should you change? The answer I propose to you is, not one thing, not one thing. You see God has always had the power to change things on this earth and He has always used it perfectly. When we come to see things through God's eyes, we'll be able to see why He made the decisions He made and we will see that He was always right. Always. Until then, we live and we walk by faith. We have a faith which is based upon, which has as its foundation and core, not the shifting sands of human experience, but the unchangeable perfect character of God Himself. We believe that He is exactly what He says He is and that He is the faithful rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. It's not always easy, but until we can come to that point, God cannot share the fullness of His power with us. Only when He knows that we will use that power exactly like He does, will He be able to share fully that power with you and me. He is eagerly looking forward to that day and Pentecost is the promise of that. We can look forward eagerly as well to that time when we can fully share the power of God and use it as God Himself uses it.