Eternal life lived is a life full of miracles.
length: 84:11 - taught on Sep, 4 2022
Class Outline:
Sunday September 3,2022
Title: Eternal life lived is a life full of miracles.
Eternal life lived is a life full of miracles.
A miracle is a supernatural event or occurrence. Since the natural man is corrupt, for the new self to think and do things that are holy (love, have Christ’s joy and peace, etc.), these are miracles wrought by God within the heart of man, and if that is so, Christ is at home in that heart.
On this day, as on other days, but this one is unique, Jesus is going to show them His power.
Jesus told the disciples to go on ahead of Him across the sea and as they were about half way, they found Him walking across.
There are great lessons in this whole day for the disciples and therefore for us. They were given a ministry to fulfill after Jesus’ departure and we are each given one. We are each called to live the same kind of life that they had. This day is full of miracles, and so will our own lives be if we reach ahead to that for which we were called.
Jesus is being followed because of His many miracles, which the disciples have witnessed.
And a great multitude was following Him, because they were seeing the signs which He was performing on those who were sick.
He then feeds the five thousand. He then walks on water in the midst of a storm that even experienced fishermen feared.
And immediately He made His disciples get into the boat and go ahead of Him to the other side to Bethsaida, while He Himself was sending the multitude away. 46 And after bidding them farewell, He departed to the mountain to pray. 47 And when it was evening, the boat was in the midst of the sea, and He was alone on the land. 48 And seeing them straining at the oars, for the wind was against them, at about the fourth watch of the night, He came to them, walking on the sea; and He intended to pass by them. 49 But when they saw Him walking on the sea, they supposed that it was a ghost, and cried out; 50 for they all saw Him and were frightened. But immediately He spoke with them and said to them, "Take courage; it is I, do not be afraid." 51 And He got into the boat with them, and the wind stopped; and they were greatly astonished [Greek: astonished or amazed], 52 for they had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves, but their heart was hardened.
He says three things to them: 1) Take courage. Your own idea of things has made you despondent. With Me there is hope. Hope looks at the future that I can make. 2) It is I. No one else can do what I can do and I have come to you. 3) Do not be afraid. I calm storms and walk on water. Do not fear the storm, difficult things in life, nor even your own sin. With Me all things are possible.
However, they had not yet understood these things. Mark tells us that their hearts were hardened, either at the feeding of the 5,000 or still to this point, but the point is that there was a time when they didn’t understand and later on there was a point when they did and grew strong (Pentecost).
We saw this same type of phrase in our last lesson on the old and new self:
in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart;
This is Paul’s description of the walk of the nations (unbelievers of the world).
The disciples could not deny the power of Jesus, confirming Him as the Son of God, but they had not yet understood their own relationship to Him. Knowing Him to be the Son of God was a step in the right direction, but they have to be in Him. They are saved men, but His death on their behalf hasn’t happened yet. Still, when it does, if they lack the understanding of what being in Him means, they will only look upon His miracles rather than living the life of miracles.
If the Son of God is able to do all of that which is eternal life, and on our part, all we can do is watch Him, we have no part with Him and soon enough, dying in our sins, we will never see Him again.
However, if we come to be in Him and Him in us forever, not only are we with Him forever, but we are always in the sphere of His wonderful life - always. Like the disciples at this time, the great problem with the church is believers who do not grasp this truth: by the grace of God we are always in the fellowship of the Trinity and so we must grab hold of eternal life and leave the corrupt flesh behind.
Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called;
For the one who sows to his own flesh shall from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit shall from the Spirit reap eternal life.
We have to learn to no longer be astonished at supernatural power, for it is to be our everyday life. I do not mean that we should lose our wonder and love and appreciation for the power God exhibits when we behold His majesty and perform His will, but that these thoughts and acts should become so commonplace that we see them as our normal life. If we saw Jesus walking on the water every day, it wouldn’t take long for us to get used to it.
He can feed a multitude while they cannot. He can walk on water while they need a boat. He can calm a storm when they can only fear it. And still, they had not gained any insight.
The softened heart is an imagery of understanding breaking through the hard shell of wrong assumptions.
We all come into the spiritual life with a vast amount of wrong assumptions. We think we know the Son of God and the Father and the Holy Spirit. We think we know how the great eternal life can be lived. We think we know what is in store for us. We think we know what it will take to overcome the flesh. But, every knowledge that is not from the Scripture is not revelation from God, in other words, our own ideas are worthless when it comes to eternal life.
2Cor 12:8
12:8 Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. 12:9 And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 12:10 Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.
It is the softened heart that is courageous and not the hard heart.
The disciples had had long tiresome days in which they witnessed the Son of God work in the sphere if the divine on earth, and still, the cold, hard shell of misunderstanding blocked their hearts.
And, once again, we have Peter who knows and trusts to some extent and he actually asks to join Christ on the water. It is something like when Peter confesses Jesus as the Christ, as the Son of God, but then forbids Jesus to go to Jerusalem to die.
Matthew records Peter walking on water:
And Peter answered Him and said, "Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water." 29 And He said, "Come!" And Peter got out of the boat, and walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30 But seeing the wind, he became afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, "Lord, save me!" 31 And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and took hold of him, and said to him, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?"
MAT 14:29 reveals that Peter actually did walk on the water, but soon became afraid and began to sink. Jesus’ reply, “O you of little faith. Why did you doubt” (MAT 14:31)?
One author says,
“It is easy to criticize Peter for sinking - but have you ever gotten out of the boat yourself?” [Warren Wiersbe]
Faith is courage and the path of miracles. Doubt is fear and the path of self alone.
And when they got into the boat, the wind stopped. 33 And those who were in the boat worshiped Him, saying, "You are certainly God's Son!"
This revelation of Christ’s power (healing, feeding, walking on water, calming the storm) led them to the confirmation that He really was the Son of God. That is a very good thing to believe. But what does that mean for us? The answer to that question they had not yet begun to know.
for they had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves, but their heart was hardened.
Peter has the Lord as his own on this night, but what the Lord shows him is that he has all he needs to do what the Lord desires him to do, but he cannot do it with fear in his heart.
We have the word and the Holy Spirit and the indwelling Lord, but if we are worried about this and that, and afraid of that one or the other, or bothered by whatever, we will sink instead of walking strongly on what is for the normal man, impossible.
What does it mean to have the Son of God in your boat and know you are in Him? He opens up the life of the Trinity to us.
He healed many, fed many, walked on water, calmed a storm, and now the disciples and the multitude would be taught that they were not to rely upon Him to keep doing miracles on their behalf. The miracles showed them who He was. But life for mankind would not be sitting back and watching Jesus do the miraculous.
Life would only be had for those who entered into Christ through (ate His flesh and drank His blood).
He got into the boat with them and came to the opposite shore. When morning came the multitude on the other side, where the miracle of bread and fish was performed, they could tell that the disciples left in a boat, but Jesus did not take a boat. They got into their boats and headed across to find the disciples, and to their surprise, Jesus was with them.
And when they found Him on the other side of the sea, they said to Him, "Rabbi, when did You get here?"
Mankind needs union with Christ. Everything else is extra and far less valuable or important.
Jesus answered them and said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves, and were filled. 27 "Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man shall give to you, for on Him the Father, even God, has set His seal."
It is a testimony to all of us, all of fallen mankind, that we followed Jesus to the other side of the lake, not because He was offering us eternal life and eternal fulfillment, but because He made a lot of bread. When He pointed out that they were more impressed with full bellies than they were with His works, they pressed Jesus as to how they might do God’s work, to which He replied …
They said therefore to Him, "What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?" 29 Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent."
Faith is not work done by us, but by Him. In faith we claim His work as our own.
Not convinced in Him alone as the source of life, they asked for a further sign, not because they were so far impressed with His signs, but because they put themselves in the seat of judgment and demanded that Jesus prove Himself to them. Yet still, their understanding of a Messianic miracle is physical bread.
They said therefore to Him, "What then do You do for a sign, that we may see, and believe You? What work do You perform? 31 "Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, 'He gave them bread out of heaven to eat.'" 32 Jesus therefore said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. 33 "For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world."
Ah, He gets to the great and central truth of the whole of creation - the bread of God which comes from heaven gives life to the world. And what kind of life would that be? Eternal life!
They said therefore to Him, “Lord, evermore give us this bread.”
He will. And some will see what the bread is by believing the gospel and others will refuse to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is who He says He is, which the church has been heralding for two thousand years.
Let us not miss the import of this passage. Mankind wants a full belly, a perfect marriage and love life, a superabundance of money and power, perfect security, and on and on the list goes. But man cannot achieve any of it.
All things are wearisome;
Man is not able to tell it.
The eye is not satisfied with seeing,
Nor is the ear filled with hearing.
Our Lord Jesus delivers us from this fallen world and our fallen selves and earns for us eternal life and enters us into the fellowship of the Trinity. It is a life of miracles in a world that is itself wearisome and unsatisfied.
Communion:
The Lord gave His life, Himself, so that we could have eternal life. To comprehend the value of eternal life is to see the glory of God. The flesh that draws us to sin and things of death has an earthly appeal. It is amazing how hard it draws us and how attracted to it we are. The grace and mercy of God gives us the ability to pursue eternal life after many failed attempts. It is never too late. It is never too late for the Lord to show up and get into your boat.
For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, "This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me." 25 In the same way He took the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me." 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.
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