It has been wonderful to be with you. It's such a great privilege to be able to teach people who have open hearts, who hunger for the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what I want to do this morning is get you to think about one particular thing. If you're God's child, if you've been saved by His grace, if your sins have been forgiven by His mercy, you have not only been forgiven and welcomed into a relationship with Him, but you have been called to a brand new, radically different way of living.
Faith Is Not Natural
It's as radical a change as you could ever imagine possible in the universe. How is that for a statement? You are called to live by this thing called 'faith.' Now, can we talk here? Faith isn't natural for us. Doubt is natural; anxiety is natural; looking over the fence and envying somebody else's life is natural; hoping your week will be predictable is natural; hoping storms never come is natural; lying in bed at night and playing all the 'what-ifs' in your head is natural; trusting your own strength and wisdom is natural; relying on the track record of your experience is natural; but faith isn't natural for us.
It's just a counterintuitive, radically different way of living, but we've been called to live by faith. So I want to think with you this morning: how is it that God crafts us into people of faith? How does He make us into those kinds of people who don't just live by experience and live by personal wisdom or collective research or all of those other ways we live, but live by this distinctive, radically new way of living called faith? Now, I want to say something to you that will appear a bit out of context, but it will make sense later.
Here it is: there is a radical difference between amazement and faith. Uou can be amazed by things that you don't actually put your faith in. Every year for years, our family has made the trek from Philadelphia to Ocean City for a family vacation. Philadelphians say, "We go down the shore." We don't know why we don't say, "...down to the shore," but we do. We say, "We go down the shore." And we've done that for years, and now my children are grown up, and three of four are married, and we gather still, the whole extended family, for a week vacation there on the Jersey Shore.
And Ocean City is a very family-oriented place, but my children always want us to go down one community down further, Wildwood, because at Wildwood, there are these big, huge peers with these amazing amusement parks. And there is on one of those peers, a ride, I guess you would call it ride, that just amazes me. It's this big, tall, metal girder, like the world's biggest inn, and from it hang elastic straps; at the bottom of that thing is a pouch; it looks like the world's biggest slingshot, and some otherwise sane human being will pay seven dollars to have himself strapped into that pouch, and they pull him back, and they launch him back and forth over the Atlantic Ocean at night.
It's one of those rides where you text somebody, "I paid seven dollars tonight and almost died! Yeah!" Now that ride amazes me. The first time I saw it, I was just like this. My family went off and rode rides. I just stood there. They realized I wasn't with them. But, I can tell you for sure: you will not strap Paul Tripp into that pouch and launch him over the Atlantic Ocean at night. There's a huge, yes, significant difference between amazement and faith. I want you to turn in your Bibles to Mark 6.
And as you're looking there, I want to talk a little bit about the Gospel of Mark. I love the Gospel of Mark! I love how it's fast-paced and hard-hitting. Mark is not like Luke. Luke is a physician; he can't resist making all kinds of editorial comments all the time. Mark doesn't inject himself very much into his Gospel at all. It's just hard-hitting, fast-paced; it's actually a very modern-feeling Gospel. And Mark is sticking the reality that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, the Son of God, in such a way that he leaves you with no neutrality at all.
You must accept that Jesus is who He declares He is, or you must walk away and reject Him. There is no room for saying, if you read through Mark, "Well this is a wonderful prophetteacher." Because Mark would make you think that this is either the Son of God, or He's the world's worst liar and completely untrustworthy. No neutrality. And alongside of that course is the story of Christ collecting followers around Him, disciples. And it's very clear that His purpose for them is not just that they would be recipients of the work of His Kingdom, but they were to be instruments of the work of that Kingdom as well.
And so in order for that to happen, they must become men of faith. If you read the Gospels, you know the disciples weren't naturally men of faith. And so you see Christ doing this thing again and again. He will introduce the disciples to some kind of difficulty; and then in that difficulty, He will reveal His glory. It's to alter their paradigm for life. It's to alter the way they think about who they are and who He is and what life is about. There's a bit of a Gospel equation that goes through Mark.
Here it is: Divine Power + Divine Compassion = Everything You Need. Divine Power + Divine Compassion = Everything You Need. That's great to put on your refrigerator or your morning mirror! DP + DC = EYN, for you mathematicians in the room. DP + DC = EYN. Divine Power, plus Divine Compassion, equals Everything You Need. Now, let's look at Mark 6, verse 45: Immediately he (Jesus) made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, to Bethsaida, while He dismissed the crowd. And after he had taken leave of them, he went up on the mountain to pray.
And when evening came, the boat was out on the sea, and he was alone on the land. And he saw that they were making headway (very) painfully, for the wind was against them. And about the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. He meant to pass by them, but when they saw him walking on the sea they thought it was a ghost, and cried out, for they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, "Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid." And he got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased.
And they were utterly (amazed) astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened. Now the disciples find themselves in another one of these moments of difficulty. They are trying to row across the Sea of Galilee; they're facing an impossible head wind; they're facing angry seas; it's a dangerous, exhausting, discouraging, futile kind of moment. If you look at the time clues in the passage, they've been rowing for eight hours! They're going nowhere fast! And in this moment of difficulty and danger, as you get to look into it, you ought to ask yourself the question: How in the world did the disciples get themselves in this mess?
Full of Themselves
Maybe they just have been disobedient; maybe they've just made an unwise choice; maybe they were just full of themselves thinking that they had more wisdom and strength than they actually had. But if you look at the very first verse that I've read, look there; it says, "Immediately he (Christ) made his disciples get into the boat." This mess is exactly where Jesus wants them. They are there, not because they've been foolish; they are there not because they've been arrogant or proud; they are there because they were precisely obedient to the command of Christ.
Jesus has them exactly where He wants them. Now when you read that, you ought to say, "Well, why? Why would Jesus ever want His children in this kind of mess? Why would He ever expose them to this kind of danger? Why would He ever call them to this kind of futility, way beyond their strength, way beyond their wisdom, way beyond all their natural abilities. Why? Why? Why? Why? I thought He was a God of love. I thought He was a God of mercy. I thought He was a God of grace. I thought He protected and provided.
What's up with this?" Well, Jesus knows something about these guys. He knows how shockingly selfrighteous they can be. He knows how committed they are to their own plans and not His. He knows how self-oriented they can be. He knows how full of the sense of their own strength and wisdom they could be. So, Jesus will take them where they haven't intended to go in order to produce in them what they could not achieve on their own. Jesus will take them where they haven't intended to go in order to produce in them what they could not achieve on their own.
God will take you where you haven't intended to go in order to produce in you what you could not achieve on your own. God will take you where you haven't intended to go in order to produce in you what you could not achieve on your own. You know what the Bible calls that? Grace! But it's not the grace of release; it's not the grace of relief. Oh, we get those in pieces; but largely, that's the grace to come; it's the grace of radical transformation; it's the grace of personal rescue; it's the grace of heart refinement, but it's grace.
God's grace is not always a cool drink. God's grace is not always a soft pillow. God's grace is not always circumstantial deliverance. I think there are very many times when we're crying out, "Where is the grace of God?" and we're getting it! But it's not the grace of relief and release, but it's grace. Hear what I am about to say: We better become committed and skilled in communicating to one another in personal fellowship, in teaching and preaching, the theology - get this term - of 'uncomfortable grace'.
Because often the grace of Jesus comes to us in uncomfortable forms, but it's grace! Because in that moment, that grace is doing something inside of you that you couldn't possibly do for yourself. If you're God's child here this morning, you must not name the difficulties of your life as a sign of your Lord's unfaithfulness and inattention! You must not allow yourself to bring Him in the court of your judgment and question His faithfulness and goodness and love! You must not listen to the cruel lies of the enemy who would say to you, "Where is your Savior now?"
Because those difficulties are actually empirical evidence of the zeal of His redemptive love! You're not being forgotten; you're being loved. It's grace! It's grace! It's grace! The question for many of us, in ways for all of us, is not, "Will God lavish His grace down on me?" That's not the question. You don't need to ask that question. The question is. "Will you recognize it when it comes?" That's the question. Now, go back to your Bibles, verse 47: And when evening came, the boat was out on the sea, and he was alone on the land.
And he saw that they were making headway painfully, for the wind was against them. And about the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. (ESV) Walking on the sea -- w..a..l..k..i....g on the sea! You're way too passive--Walk-ING on the sea! Walking on the SEA - Walk-ING on the sea! Don't try this at home! Now there are two very significant theological observations you must make the minute you are told that this man, Christ Jesus, walks on the sea. Here's the first one: you immediately know this is Lord God Almighty!
This is the Messiah. This is the King. This is the Sovereign One. This is the Creator. He can do anything He wants with His creation. This is Lord of all! You don't need any more evidence of the deity of Jesus than the first step on water. This is God Almighty. Discussion over! Argument won! I'm sick with how I'm able to read these passages and be unimpressed. God forgive me. I'm sick that we aren't blown away when we see just those words, "He walked on the sea," and we don't drop to our knees and say, "Who in the universe is like You, Oh Lord God Almighty?
I bow at Your glory!" But we don't; we go, "Ah, He's walking on the sea." Are you nuts? Did you read it? Mark could have actually stopped his Gospel at that point and said, "There, I proved it! Deal done! Now start worshiping." It's that powerful. God help us. Before you read your Bible every morning, (I hope you do that.) pray that God would open your heart to the glory that's on the pages. Because reading the Bible is a relationship; it's not an academic exercise; it's not an informational exercise; it's a relationship with the God of the Bible!
And you're not meant to just read your Bible because that's what good Christians do; reading your Bible is a means that God has given us of encountering the God of the Bible. Your job is not just to master the Word, but be mastered by the God of the Word. And our eyes can be so closed to the display of glory that's right there in front of us; He walks on the sea! I feel like at this moment, I ought to just shut up and let the glory wash over you. It's just so amazing. But there's a second observation and here it is.
This is the key to understanding this whole vignette. The minute Jesus takes the walk, you know what He has in mind. The minute He takes a walk, you know what He has in mind; because (stay with me here.) if all Jesus wanted to do in this moment was to relieve the difficulty, He wouldn't have had to take the walk. If all He wanted to do is get the disciples out of the mess, He wouldn't have had to take the walk. All He would have had to do is to say a prayer from the shore; the wind would have ceased; the sea would've gotten calm, and the boys in the boat would have happily rowed to the other side.
Walking Into the Head Wind
But that's not what He does. Now, here's the scene. The Lord God Almighty is now walking across the angry sea; He's walking into the impossible head wind. Why is He doing that? Because He's not after the difficulty; He's after the boys in the middle of the difficulty. That's what He's after; that's redemption. He's after them! Now, can I make a confession to you here? I will confess this; it's a bit of a sad confession. When I'm in one of those moments where I'm facing something that I thought I would never face, I don't hunger for redemption; I just want it to end.
"If you love me, end it!" I don't sing in the midst of all the horrible storm, "Redeemed, how I love to proclaim it, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb." No, I don't do that. I scan other people's lives. "Does Jesus love them more than me? Why now? Don't you know, Jesus, what's going on in my life? This is way too much for me to handle." But, this is redemption. This is how redemption works. He's after you. He's after you. And He's much more committed to your salvation being utterly perfected and complete than He is for you achieving your particular little definition of happiness!
Sorry, it's true. He's not signing at the bottom of your wish list, "Be assured, Messiah, JC." Not doing that. Because you see, you and I don't have the sense enough to desire what's best. The fact that He doesn't covenantally enslave Himself to our desires is actually grace. Praise God that He hasn't given me everything I want. Praise Him! Praise Him! Now, you've got to get the scene. Nothing's changed. The wind is still blowing; the waves are still crashing; the Messiah now is taking the stroll.
And it says, "He meant to pass by them, but when they saw him walking on the sea they thought it was a ghost, and cried out." Now, when it says, "He meant to pass by them," it doesn't mean that He needed a GPS. It means He wanted to take a big enough arc to be sure that everybody in the boat would see Him, because here's what He's trying to do. He's trying to change everything they think about life. He's trying to say, "Don't you get it? It's never ever you alone with your life; you alone with your difficulty; you left to your wisdom; you left to your experience; you left to your strength; because when the Messiah has invaded your life by His grace, you're never in a storm by yourself.
It's absolutely redemptively impossible!" Now, here's why this is important. It's important because you're always preaching to yourself. You never stop preaching to yourself. For every one sermon you hear up here, you hear a 1000 that are preached by you. And you're always defining and interpreting life. I say this all the time, and people laugh when I say it, but I'm really quite serious, "No one is more influential in your life than you are because no one talks to you more than you do." (You see, you laughed.)
And it's true. Most of us have learned it's best not to move our lips, and don't change places; they will think you're crazy. But the things that you say to you, about you, about God, about life, are profoundly important. You never leave your life alone. You're always interpreting; you're always picking it apart. Everyone in this room is a philosopher. Everyone in this room is a theologian. Everyone in this room is an archaeologist who will dig through the mound of his or her existence trying to make sense out of your life.
And you will either preach to yourself in these moments a gospel of aloneness and inability and partiality and poverty; or you will preach to yourself the true Gospel of the presence and power and grace of Immanuel, God with us! What Jesus is doing is He's literally, in this moment, physically displaying the Gospel. This is the Gospel displayed physically: Jesus now inhabiting the lives of these men by His grace. That's the Gospel of Jesus Christ; that's hope. It's pictured in this passage. Now, did you notice what happened next?
The boys in the boat aren't heartened. They don't see Jesus and rise and sing the Doxology. They don't. In fact, rather than being heartened, rather than being encouraged, they're terrified! They think they see a ghost. Now, you got to think about this. Why? These guys seem utterly unprepared for this moment. It's like it's the first time they've ever been in difficulty, and it's the first time Jesus has ever revealed His glory. They seem completely unprepared. They had seen Him raise a little girl from the dead.
They had seen Him calm another storm. They had watched Him feed a massive crowd with a little boy's lunch. Why are they utterly, totally unprepared? And why are they cast into the same kind of fear that someone who didn't know Jesus and didn't know what He was doing would have? Well, let me ask you the question? When difficulty comes your way again, what do you do? Do you freak out all over again? Wonder what in the world is happening all over again? Wonder why your life is hard all over again? Wonder where God is all over again?
Wonder if He is hearing your prayers all over again? Do you? I'm afraid there are probably some of us in this room in those moments. We're better at seeing ghosts than Jesus. We get ourselves all discouraged and all depressed and all paralyzed and immobilized all over again as if we'd never seen His glory, as if we'd never tasted His mercy. It's as if we've never had the first experience of grace. That's what's happening in that boat. In case you hadn't figured it out, these guys should not be terrified.
Now, what happens next is stunningly beautiful; because at this moment when Jesus is going to this extent to manufacture this circumstance and to reveal His glory and these disciples just don't get it, He doesn't scream and yell at them. He doesn't say, "I've had it. You guys are never going to get it. I've revealed myself to you again and again and again, and it's like you know nothing. It's like you've learned nothing. I'm tired of you. I'm going to get a new set of disciples, get out of the boat!"
Marvelous in His Grace
He doesn't say that because this One is marvelous in His grace. This One is patient in His grace. This One is perseverant in His grace. This One has such zeal of grace; He will not relent until that grace has completed its work. And Jesus says to His disciples while the wind is still blowing, the waves still crashing. He says to His disciples, "Take heart. It is I. Do not be afraid." He actually speaks the most important words that could be spoken. It's hard to see it in the English translations, but Jesus is actually taking one of the names of God.
He is saying, "Don't you understand the 'I AM' is here. The 'I AM' is here." The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the One on whom all the covenant promises rest, the One was the same yesterday today and forever. The One who created it all. The One who holds the universe in the hollow of his hands. The One on whom all of the hopes of the universe rest. The One through whom salvation will only ever come. The 'I AM' is here. The 'I AM' is here. Your life has been invaded by the 'I AM.' That's called a paradigm shift.
If you actually believe that, if you actually believe that your life has been invaded by the 'I AM,' you won't ever live the same again. Moms, when you're at the end of one of those rough parenting days where you think it seems like your children have been particularly rebellious; like they got together and planned it--who would drive you crazy at what moment; and now you hear fighting in the room as you're getting ready to go to bed. You'd better walk down that hallway and say, "I am not alone. The 'I AM' has invaded my life by His grace"--you'd better.
When you're facing something in your marriage that's disappointing and heartbreaking that you never thought you would face, you'd better say to yourself, "I am not alone, the 'I AM' has invaded my life by His grace." When some executive in a city that you'll never be in and a person you'll never know has made a corporate decision, and it has meant the end of your job, you're driving home; you better say to yourself, "The 'I AM, I AM' has invaded my life by His grace." When you're facing a disloyalty in a relationship, and it's broken your heart, and you want not to think about it, but you wake up every morning, and it greets you like a knot in the pit of your stomach, you'd better say to yourself, "The 'I AM' has invaded my life by His grace, I am not alone."
When you're facing unexpected physical sickness, and your body seems weaker than it's ever seemed, and you live with the fear of not knowing what's going to happen next, you'd better say to yourself, "The 'I AM' has invaded my life by His grace; I am not alone." When you're facing the difficulties of old age and death is scary, and physical health isn't as easy as it once was, you'd better say yourself. "The 'I AM' has invaded my life by His grace." You see, grace isn't just about past forgiveness or future hope; it's about right now.
We had better believe and embrace the 'now-ism' of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. The 'I AM' has invaded my life by His grace. I am not alone. Now, look in your Bible to what happens next. Finally, it seems like an eternity; Jesus gets in the boat, and it's only at this point, having changed the paradigm, having altered the fundamental way these guys think about life, that the wind ceases; the waves calm, and it says then that they were utterly amazed. Now, that's not actually a compliment, because this is one of the places where Mark can't resist making an editorial comment.
He explains why they are amazed. (And I will talk about that in a moment.) But I want to talk about this dynamic for a moment. There is a huge, yes, even significant difference between amazement and faith. Amazement is essentially something you do with your brain. Amazement is this: it's being taken beyond the categories that you have to define or explain something; that's amazement - taken beyond the categories that you have to define or explain something. Faith employs your brain, but it is a commitment of your heart to a reality that changes the way you live.
Faith is the commitment of your heart, the rest of your heart in a reality that changes the way you live your life. Let me give you a silly definition of amazement. Pretend we're standing outside here; you're standing next to me, and up-pulls this just awesome, bright yellow, exotic, European sports car. It's about this tall at its highest point, and it has this throaty roar of an engine that roars down in front of you; engine turns off; gull-wing doors open, and the driver sort of slithers his way out because he's more lying down than sitting down.
And you are just very interested in this car. You ask him if you could sit inside of it. He' says, "Sure." You slide yourself in, and it feels more like a rocket ship than it does automobile. And you sort of get your way out, and you're walking around the car, and you can't resist asking a rather impertinent, impolite question, but you just can't resist. You say, "Can you tell me how much this thing is worth? What did you pay for this thing?" He says, "No, I don't mind telling you, $450,000." At this point, you're impressed, and his iPhone rings, and he says, "Got to go."
And he hops in the car; gull-wing doors close; he roars that 12-cylinder engine to life; puts it in gear, and it levitates out of sight. Now you're amazed because you don't have any categories for what you've just experienced. And you're wondering if the person next to you saw the same thing because you don't really want be insane. There's a significant difference between amazement and faith. You can be amazed at the preaching that you hear every Sunday and not be living by faith. You can be amazed by wonderful worship music, music like you've never heard before and not be living by faith.
You can feel amazed by the grand sweep of redemptive story and not be living by faith. You can be amazed by the tight labyrinthine logic of the Word of God and not be living by faith. You can be amazed by the love of your small group and not be living by faith. You can be amazed by the ministry opportunities that are here available to you and not be living by faith. You can be amazed by all of the resources that are available to you and not be living by faith. You can be amazed by the wonderful history of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ and not be living by faith.
There is a profound difference between amazement and faith! These guys shouldn't have been amazed. This, for them, should not have been a moment of amazement; it should been, for them, a moment of faith. And Mark tells you why, it says, "...for, (That tells you're going to get a description, an explanation.) they did not understand about the loaves but their hearts were hardened." Now, here's Mark's explanation. When he says, "They didn't understand about the loaves," what he means is, they hadn't learned their lessons.
Miracles That Preach the Gospel
You see, the miracles of Jesus reveal His compassion to relieve people's difficulty, but they meant much more than that. The miracles that Jesus was doing were to teach the Gospel; they were to preach the Gospel; the Gospel is being taught in those miracles. Jesus, in the miracles, is redefining who these people are. Jesus, in the miracles, is redefining what they need. Jesus, in the miracles, is confronting people with their inability and with His power and glory. The miracles preach the Gospel; the miracles were sermons!
They are not just there because Jesus is compassionate; they are surely there because He's compassionate, but they are deeply and expansively more than that. And so, when it says they didn't learn about the loaves, what do the loaves tell you? Well, it tells you a couple of things. First, this is the Ultimate Provider; "I will provide!" But it does more than that. It teaches you that Jesus is the 'Bread of Life.' It's only when you eat His flesh and drink His blood; it's only when you consume Him by faith, as it were, that your heart will only ever be satisfied because it won't be satisfied with physical food; it will only be satisfied by Him.
You see, that miracle is a very specific, intentional lesson to learn, discernment. They hadn't learned their lessons. Have you? Have you learned your lessons? And the Bible tells us why; Mark tells us why, continuing his editorial comment, he says, "But their hearts were hardened." You see, the reason they didn't learn their lessons is because they had hard hearts. Now, that is actually a physical word picture in Scripture. It's the picture of a stony heart. If I had a big rock in my hands right now, and I would squeeze it with all of my might, what do you think would happen?
Well, look at the size of my arms. Sadly, the answer is quite obvious, Nothing! The picture of a stony heart, the picture of a hard heart, is the picture of one (hear this) who's resistant to change. You see, soft things are malleable; soft things can be molded. Hard things are resistant to change. The disciples were resistant to change, and Mark and Luke and John and Matthew depict why: because the disciples were all too satisfied with who they were. They were satisfied; they didn't cry out personally, hunger personally, for change.
I don't think the big crisis for the church of Jesus Christ is dissatisfaction; I think we're all too easily satisfied! And because we're satisfied, we don't hunger for change, and so we don't learn well; we don't take in; we don't meditate on the lessons that a faithful Redeemer is teaching us again and again and again. Luella, my dear wife, and I gave birth to a son who just didn't understand the concept of gifts. (Well, actually Luella gave birth. I didn't participate in that portion.) And it drove me crazy.
We would buy Justin a toy, birthday or Christmas, and this would happen again and again. He would tear open the box, discard the toy, and play with the box. It made me nuts! It happened again and again. So there was one Christmas where I was actually determined that I would win, and we would find the quintessential Justin-gift, one that he would not be able to resist; it was a quest. I grabbed poor Luella, and I dragged her out there, and we were out much longer than it was rational for people to be out to find a gift, but we finally found it.
I knew that he would love this toy. It was like the manufacturer made it with him in mind; I was so excited. It came, at Christmas, time for him to open that gift and, wow, we were surely more excited than he would've ever been. And he tore open the gift like a little boy would, not thinking about recycling, and actually started to play with the toy! I had such deep feelings of parental success. I went into the kitchen to get something to drink and got engaged in a conversation with another member of my family, and after several minutes, came back out into the living room ... and he was sitting in the box.
Now, maybe you're wondering, "Why is this man telling us this cute family story at the end of the sermon?" Well, here it is: you have been given the most awesome gift that could ever be given. It's a gift that's gorgeous from every vista that you would examine it. It's a gift that every human being who's ever taken a breath needs, whether he or she knows it or not. It is the ultimate gift of gifts; it's a gift you could never earn; you could never achieve; you could never deserve. It's the only gift in the universe that has the power of changing you and everything about you.
It is 'The Gift!' It's the gift of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. But I am persuaded that in the face of being given that gift, many of us would be content with playing with the box. We're content with a little bit of theological knowledge; we're content with a little bit of Biblical literacy; we're content with sometimes a faith that lives its best on Sunday morning; we're content with episodic moments of ministry; we're content with a little money in the plate. But we're not in deep personal sadness at our need and joyful celebration at the gift, holding onto that gift with both hands and saying, "I can't believe that I've been given this gift of grace.
I can't believe it. I want to be wherever this gift is explained to me. I want to be with people who love this gift as well. I want to hold onto this gift with both hands. I'm not letting go of t
