William by the water

In our Tampa First SDA group studies/ prayer meetings on Wednesdays we have been studying the book of John. I thought I would share a little of what we discovered tonight, while looking at Jesus walking on the water in John 6:16-24

    

Discussion question: What was one of your greatest childhood fears: Bugs? High places? Water?

  

16When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, 17where they got into a boat and set off across the lake for Capernaum. By now it was dark, and Jesus had not yet joined them. 18A strong wind was blowing and the waters grew rough. 19When they had rowed three or three and a half miles,[b] they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water; and they were terrified.

  

Discussion question: How would you have reacted if you saw Jesus walking on water?

    

 20But he said to them, “It is I; don’t be afraid.”

  

Discussion question: Have you ever been terrified by some drastic changes or trials in your life only to find out it was Jesus working in your life? In what areas of your life do you need to hear Jesus say, “It is I; don’t be afraid.”

   

 21Then they were willing to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading.

  

People say walking on water was a sign of Jesus’ divinity. While Jesus was the divine Son of God was God Himself, he never did anything, including walking on water that we could not do through the power of His Father as well. Jesus walked on water but so did Peter. In Matthew 14 we see Peter walking on water so long as he kept his eyes on Jesus. Earlier in Matthew 14 we see Jesus spending the evening in prayer. I wonder if Peter had also spent the evening in prayer if he would have still fallen while on the water? Jesus did wonderful things in public after spending quality time alone with the Father. In order to be like Jesus in public we must first be like Jesus in solitude by spending quality time with God in prayer and Bible Study.

Again Jesus did not do anything but what He also made it possible for others to do. He walked on water so peter could walk on water. He raised the dead, but Peter also raised the dead. (Acts 9)

All the wonderful things Jesus did, He did not on His own, but by the power of the Father: Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. John 14:10

  

Jesus promised us that whatever He did He would help us do it too! I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. John 14:12

  

We have always heard that Jesus never did any miracles just for display or to “show off.” His miracles served a purpose. What purpose did Jesus serve by walking on water? I don’t know, but here is my idea. Isaiah 59 talks about the enemy coming in like a flood of water. In Revelation 21 John does not see any heaven in paradise. In Isaiah 59 the flood of water is evil. In Revelation 21 John does not see any sea to separate us anymore. The sea and is like sin in that it separates people. Could it be that by walking on the water, Jesus was showing us that He had conquered sin for us and was bruising the serpent’s head in Genesis 3:15? In Prophecy “sea” represents peoples and nations. Could He have been showing us that His kingdom was greater than the kingdoms of the earth?

Not only does the Bible teach us plainly that Jesus had conquered sin and this world so that we too can overcome, but here are some passages from the classic book, Desire of Ages, that gives us hope as well.

It would have been an almost infinite humiliation for the Son of God to take man’s nature, even when Adam stood in his innocence in Eden. But Jesus accepted humanity when the race had been weakened by four thousand years of sin. Like every child of Adam He accepted the results of the working of the great law of heredity. What these results were is shown in the history of His earthly ancestors. He came with such a heredity to share our sorrows and temptations, and to give us the example of a sinless life.  {Desire of Ages p. 48} 

  

Sin could be resisted and overcome only through the mighty agency of the Third Person of the Godhead, who would come with no modified energy, but in the fullness of divine power. It is the Spirit that makes effectual what has been wrought out by the world’s Redeemer. It is by the Spirit that the heart is made pure. Through the Spirit the believer becomes a partaker of the divine nature. Christ has given His Spirit as a divine power to overcome all hereditary and cultivated tendencies to evil, and to impress His own character upon His church.  {Desire of Ages p. 671}

  

“The prince of this world cometh,” said Jesus, “and hath nothing in Me.” John 14:30. There was in Him nothing that responded to Satan’s sophistry. He did not consent to sin. Not even by a thought did He yield to temptation. So it may be with us. Christ’s humanity was united with divinity; He was fitted for the conflict by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And He came to make us partakers of the divine nature. So long as we are united to Him by faith, sin has no more dominion over us. God reaches for the hand of faith in us to direct it to lay fast hold upon the divinity of Christ, that we may attain to perfection of character.  {Desire of Ages p. 123}

For a complete Desire of Ages study on the victory Jesus gives, please visit the Vicotry page at In Light of the Cross.