WHEN JESUS IS IN THE BOAT

WHEN JESUS IS IN THE BOAT

                Our church has taken to fasting and praying for 24 hours, with people covering every hour with prayer until the doors open to feed the poor on Saturday. This has made a profound difference in the smoothness of the operation, on the atmosphere of God’s presence upon the people. More of the people from the community are asking for prayer and this weekend the prayer teams were kept busy down in the sanctuary praying for those who asked for prayer.

                Two people received Jesus as their Lord and Savior and so not only is the power of God increasing in our ministry to the poor, but it is increasing in our church service as well. On Sunday morning Pastor Acres preached on the storm at sea in which Jesus revealed His sovereign authority even over the wind and the waves.

                And as the worship team began singing in response Pastor Acres impassioned message the Spirit of God fell upon the place and people began coming down to the altar asking Jesus to speak peace into their storm and several gave their hearts to the Lord.

                There are times in a church service when emotions run high just because of the power of the music and or the power of the preaching and that is fine and good, but at times there is something different. The sovereign presence of God enters the room. It ripples through the audience and suddenly it is like the entire congregation has become one voice and one heart. Sinners come to repentance and saints pray for holiness and cleansing.

                It is fine to be baptized with water… but Jesus came to baptize us with the Holy Spirit and fire… and by God’s grace we are praying to enter into that realm in a more complete way. Everyone senses that we are coming into the harvest time and everyone senses that we are at the same time coming into a storm and we need Jesus in our boat.

                Pastor Acres pointed out that a number of the disciples were seasoned fishermen.  They had been plying these waters all of their lives. They had been fishing ever since their fathers had trained them as youths. They had undoubtedly encountered storms on the Sea of Galilee before. Winds come down through the mountain passes and burst upon the lake almost without notice and it can turn from a peaceful day into a frightening and disastrous situation.

                But notice if you will that these seasoned fishermen, when this particular storm broke upon them, the wind and the waves were overwhelming the boat and it was filling with water. The disciples battled with it for some time but it was a losing situation. Then they remembered Jesus, who was still peacefully sleeping in the boat. They cried out to Jesus saying: ”Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Mark 4:38

                They had been with Jesus long enough to begin to understand that Jesus was in charge in spite of the fact that He was not the seasoned fisherman that they were and yet they still did not know the extent of Jesus authority. He could heal the sick, feed the hungry, raise the dead, and confound the religious leaders, but nature? Who can tell? And yet they turned to Jesus and this is where Sunday night’s sermon by Pastor Corter fits so beautifully with what Pastor Acres preached in the morning. (It’s amazing how the Holy Spirit can orchestrate His purposes when a church is given to His leading.

                Pastor Corter spoke on faith and how we must actually live by faith if we are going to rise up and be the power in the world that Jesus is calling us to be. And Pastor Corter made a profound statement and repeated it twice and I will never forget it. He said:

                “Jesus didn’t come to earth to prove that He was God. He came here to prove that He was a man.”

                 So let that sink in for a long moment. And now let us return to the morning sermon and to the storm at sea. Here we see not God in the boat but a Man. Jesus is exhausted. He has been ministering to the crowds by day and praying by night. He has been burning the candle at both ends and now, being completely exhausted, He slumps down in the boat, resting His head on a cushion and He immediately falls asleep. And this is the Man that the seasoned disciples now turn to when all hope is gone. But what is the story really about here?

                It is not a story of Jesus as God. He is not standing fearlessly in the prow of the boat like George Washington crossing the Delaware. He is One exhausted and yet One who knows that He is completely in the care of His Father in heaven. He has done everything by divine appointment; therefore if they are crossing the Lake, then it was the Father who directed Him to do so. No need to worry then.

                But we can hear that story from now until doomsday, but we will not truly benefit from it until we understand that Jesus spoke peace to the storm, not as God, but as a Man.

                We know this because after rebuking the storm he turned and rebuked His disciples saying: “Why are you so timid? How is it that you have no faith? In other words: “You have been with me for quite a while now, why didn’t you stand up and rebuke the storm yourselves?

                The disciples knew Jesus as a Man. They knew He got tired. They knew He got hungry. They knew He spent long hours crying out to His Father in heaven. But now, they have had a new revelation of Jesus as a very tired man sleeping in the boat, who at their earnest pleas stood up and told the wind and the waves to cease their turmoil. And they said to one another: “Who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey Him? “ Mark 4:41

                But the story will be lost to us unless we realize that Jesus was demonstrating what He intends for us to be and to do. When Jesus healed the paralytic it says: “And when the multitudes saw this, they were filled with awe and glorified God WHO HAD GIVEN SUCH AUTHORITY TO MEN.” Mt. 9:8.

                And then in Mt. 28:18-20 Jesus said as a Man: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

                Again we tend to limit the scope of what Jesus is saying here:

1.       As a Son of Man, God the Father has given Him all authority, both in heaven and on the earth.

2.       Jesus now gives that authority to His disciples. They are to continue His Work in His power.

3.       Do we not remember what Jesus said that whatever we bind on earth will be bound in heaven?

                In Mt. 16:18, 19 Jesus mentions His church for the first time and He says to Peter and the disciples, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you shall bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven and whatever you shall loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.”

                It is sort of like a father giving the keys to the car to his son and saying, “Go, and remember that when you turn the wheel it will steer the car for you just like it did for me…. and when you step on the gas it will go for you just as it did for me… and when you step on the brake it will stop the car for you just as it stopped it for me. I have given you great power, so you must use it as I used it.”

                To this point in time the church has responded mostly in unbelief. Oh, we believe in Jesus. We believe in His Word… at least theologically… but when it comes to operating in the authority that Jesus gave to us, we don’t really believe that Jesus has handed us the keys. We don’t believe that we as men and women, can actually walk in the footsteps of Jesus and do His works.

                We have become armchair Christians … telling the famed old stories of what Jesus did, but never applying them practically to our lives. We tell these stories as if Jesus was trying to prove that He was God, but in fact He was demonstrating what WE can do when God is in us. Now He is telling US to speak to the wind and the waves.

                When we hear the great Gospel commission quoted above, we think in terms of baptizing people in water and that we must do, but that is not entirely what Jesus commissioned us to do. He told us to baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We are to immerse people in the name and the power of the, Father Son and Holy Spirit. And this power Jesus poured out upon us on the day of Pentecost, but the church, by and large has made it into a mockery. But Jesus left His disciples with these words: “… but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem and I all Judea and Samaria and even to the remotest part of the earth.” Acts 1:8… and when you add to that Jesus statement in Mt. 28 saying: “And lo I am with you always, even to the end of the age,” then you can quickly see why I say that we have made a mockery of Pentecost. Whoever gave us authority to say that the gifts of the Holy Spirit ended with the apostles? Jesus, by His Holy Spirit will be with us to the very end of the age… and that is where we now stand.

                Jesus, in His intercessory prayer for us in John chapter 17 says: “And for their sakes I sanctify Myself that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth. I do not ask in behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me THROUGH THEIR WORD that they may all be one; even as Thou Father art in Me and I in thee, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me.” John 17:19-21. Here Jesus talks about us being immersed in the Father and Son and the Holy Spirit, for in verse 22 Jesus said: And the glory which Thou has given to Me, I have given to them; that they may be one, just as We are  one.” Has any of this become obsolete? Heaven forbid! Here Jesus is spelling out His Gospel commission the way He intended for it to be taken. We are to be immersed in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and it is this immersion that will make us one with Him and with each other.

                Even as I write these things I feel suddenly overwhelmed with the mighty presence of God. I am saying what He wants me to say. Please pay attention!

                The question is this: When is the church of our day going to pick up the torch and carry it to the finish line? John baptized with water, but Jesus came to baptize us with the Holy Spirit and with fire. But somehow the vast majority of the church has been satisfied with water baptism and turning in our yearly numbers. We have literally made a religion out of our powerlessness, and we have given credence to our lack of power by saying that it ended with the apostles. Blasphemy!

                But when we take Jesus’ words seriously and we pick up the mantle of our calling and we become baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire, we are going to experience something altogether different. On the day of Pentecost it says: “So then those who had received his word were baptized and there were added that day about three thousand souls. “Acts 2:41.

                “And everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles… (Are you ever filled with a sense of Awe at the presence of God in your church? Are you seeing signs and wonders? We are beginning to experience this in our church in a limited way and at unpredictable times, but we are praying for more and I know God wants to give it if we will become purer vessels for Him.) And THE LORD was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.” Acts 2:42, 47b.

                God is looking for a safe place to put His harvest and He is not going to place His new sheep into dead and lifeless and carnal churches. Do we not understand what God is waiting for? After all, does He want us to teach His new sheep how to be dead Christians like many of us are, or is He looking for a people who will baptize them in the Holy Spirit and fire? You do the math.

                We need to move beyond water baptism, not by leaving it out, but by entering into the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire, which as it turns out, was the crowning act and purpose of His coming in the first place. Jesus came to fill men, everyday men with His Holy Spirit and fire so that we can do the works He did in the world and thus bring in the final harvest and that is what we are praying for at our church. And every Christian that is praying for the harvest and for the coming of our Lord must be praying in the say way.

                God has really had enough of our theoretical knowledge and our theological arguments. He came to bring us His Holy Spirit and His fire and He is calling for a final generation to rise up and to have the faith to enter fully into His program. This is why the Holy Spirit has us preaching about dying to the flesh and to the world, so that we can truly live by His Spirit and to truly become disciples of Jesus who have the power and authority to carry on His work in the world. 

                My eyes are blinded with tears and my heart is filled with expectation! Jesus is in the boat!