Recognizing God's Presence Amidst Life's Turmoil

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He removes Himself from the crowd, goes away into a solitary place to pray. Now there’s nothing particularly unique about that. Obviously, Jesus was a man of prayer, but you may be surprised to learn that there are only three times in the Bible that specifically describes Jesus in prayer. [00:07:10]

And what I find noteworthy about those occasions is that in every one of those times that the Bible talks about Jesus praying, He’s alone, withdrawn into a solitary place, away from the crowds, away from the disciples. And when He is alone like this as He was in the Garden of Gethsemane, as He was when He spent the night praying before He called the disciples, there is some crisis pressing in upon Him, and that crisis usually has something to do with His vocation, with His mission. [00:07:40]

And so now Jesus sees that His disciples are in trouble, and He begins to leave the land to walk out to them, and He walks on the sea. Let me just comment on that for a second. Again, the language here in the text makes no mistake about what Mark is saying, that the word there means “on top of” the water, that clearly Jesus is doing something that no mortal is able to do. [00:11:00]

In the first place, we understand that it’s in the book of Job where the Scriptures say that it is God who walks upon the waves. And in Jewish understanding, indeed in all human understanding, the only one who has the power or ability to walk on water is God Himself. And when God manifests Himself in the Old Testament in a visible way that visible manifestation of the invisible God is called a theophany. [00:14:12]

But perhaps the two most famous theophanies like this in the Old Testament are found in the book of Exodus and in the book of 1 Kings. First of all, let me look at Exodus, chapter 33. Moses is speaking to God, and he says in verse 18 or chapter 33 of Exodus, “Lord, please show me your glory.” And God said, notice this, “I will make all of My goodness pass before you, I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you, and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” [00:16:03]

And that’s what Jesus is saying, “I’m going out to the boat. I’m going to walk on the water that I might pass by them.” Jesus is self-consciously involved here in a theophany. [00:18:37]

And they all saw Him, and they were troubled, but immediately He talked with them, and He said to them, listen to this. This is not just an empty greeting. They hear Him speak and He says, “Be of good cheer. It is I. Don’t be afraid.” [00:24:00]

Now many of you were here when we preached through the entire gospel of John, and one of the things that we paid close attention to in our study of John’s gospel were the several I Am’s of Jesus, you recall. I am the bread of life. I am the good shepherd. I am the door. I am the way, the truth, and the life. And before Abraham was, I am. And so on. [00:24:33]

And when we looked at the structure of those proclamations by Jesus, we found something extraordinary, that when a person says, “I am” in Greek, he can do it in one of two ways. He can say, “Ego.” We get the word ego from that, which means “I am.” Or we get the word “eimi,” which is another form of the verb “to be,” “I am.” But we find this strange construction in the gospel of John in John’s I Am’s, where when Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd. I am the door.” and so on, “I am the resurrection and the life,” he combines “ego” and “eimi” and uses that intensified form of the verb “to be,” where he says, “Ego eimi.” It’s like he’s stuttering, “I am, I am.” [00:24:57]

But he’s not stuttering. He’s using an expression that the New Testament Greek uses to translate the ineffable name of God that God gives to Moses from the burning bush, when God said, “My name is Yahweh. I Am that I Am.” When the Greek translates Yahweh, it’s by that strange conjunction of “ego eimi.” [00:25:50]

Now when we think of the I Am’s, we think of John’s gospel. But Mark has one of the I Am’s of Jesus. Because now as He passes by, walking on the sea, and His disciples are terrified, He tries to calm their spirits, “Be of good cheer, don’t be afraid, “ego eimi,” I Am. If there was any doubt earlier that what was going on here was a theophany, Jesus’ use of the sacred name to identify Himself as He’s walking on the water makes that virtually certain. [00:26:43]

Beloved, when people don’t get it about the identity of Christ, it’s not because they don’t have any brains, it’s not because they’re unintelligent, it’s because their hearts are recalcitrant. Their hearts are made out of stone, that sin causes so great calluses to grow upon our heart, so that if Christ Himself would walk in front of us on the water today, unless the Holy Spirit changes that heart of stone to one that can beat and pulsate with spiritual life, people will not believe. [00:30:17]

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