Dave spoke this morning from Matt 15:30, which tells us ‘Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them.‘ Time and time again during the lifetime of Jesus, we see great numbers being drawn to Him; He was hugely popular because He loved people (Matt 9:36), met their needs and taught them. (Matt 13:34) We do well to learn from His example so that we can see the church grow as people are drawn to Jesus.

Jesus associated more with ordinary people than with the rich or religious leaders. He truly loved people. We as a church need to be loving others more than we love ourselves. Heb 13:2 reminds us that we must show hospitality to all and must welccome all. People need to feel love and acceptance before they will open up to us. Even if we do not approve of people’s actions, we can still accept them as they are, because this is how God treats everyone.

All needs were met by Jesus, regardless of whether the people then chose to follow Him or not. He met needs without expecting anything in return, and we too need to be prepared to give selflessly to other people.

Jesus taught profound truths in simple ways. We must be prepared to do the same, answering people’s questions as they raise them and letting others set the pace with what they ask. We need to be able to explain the gospel in simple, straightforward words, not hiding behind religious vocabulary, but explaning things simply to help people grow in an understanding of the things of God. We have to be be prepared to be available to God to use to reach out to others. Each of us has a part to play in a growing church.

A scroll was a roll of parchment for writing on; the Scriptures (writings) were originally written on scrolls. Normally, a scroll would not be eaten, but on different occasions in the Bible, we are given the vivid picture of God’s people being told to eat a scroll to symbolise eating and digesting the very words of God. Perhaps the most vivid image of this comes in Ezekiel 2:3-3:9, when Ezekiel is told to eat a scroll containing God’s words of lament and mourning and woe and that this was ‘as sweet as honey in my mouth.’ (Ezek 3:3) The psalmist described God’s words as being like honey (see Ps 19:9-10, Ps 119:103), reminding us of the goodness of God’s words, but in the context of Ezekiel’s experience, we see that the prophet was literally tasting God’s judgment upon Israel and the nations.

John has a similar experience in Revelation 10, when he is told to take and eat a little scroll: “Take it and eat it. It will turn your stomach sour, but ‘in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey.’” (Rev 10:9) John is seeing the remaining judgments of God on the nations in fulfilment of the many prophecies He gave during the Old and New Testament eras. Presumably the fact that there is still much judgment to come is what turns his stomach sour.

Doubtless John was delighted with the fact of this revelation from God which revealed that God was taking over His kingdom and would defeat His enemies. But as he pondered and reflected on the nature of this revelation (God’s wrath, the revelation of the man of sin, Satan’s kingdom, the worship of the beast, the persecution of Israel, the manifestation of man’s heart and rebellion, etc.), the message of the book became bitter in his stomach—it gave him spiritual heartburn.

Likewise, today we are invited to come to the Word of God and feed on its truth. As we study prophecy and contemplate the nature of our times, we become more confident that the return of the Lord draws ever nearer and in this we rejoice, but these are days of ever-increasing spiritual darkness, rebellion and apostasy. This saddens the heart and greatly increases the burdens and pressures of life. It causes bitterness of soul.

The wider application of ‘eating’ God’s words comes as we think about Biblical meditation on the word of God, how we must be like the cow chewing the cud, constantly reading and digesting God’s word until it becomes a very part of us. Eugene Peterson, in his book ‘Eat This Book’, says, “The Bible is a most comforting book; it is also a most discomfiting book. Eat this book; it will be sweet as honey in your mouth; but it will also be bitter to your stomach. You can’t reduce this book to what you can handle; you can’t domesticate this book to what you are comfortable with. You can’t make it your toy poodle, trained to respond to your commands.” It’s clear from Revelation 10 that there is much in the Bible we find hard to digest and understand, but Paul reminds us that all Scripture is God-breathed and useful to us. (2 Tim 3:16-17) Perhaps we need to dig deeper and keep on chewing over God’s words in thoughtful meditation.

I recently organised a surprise baby shower for my daughter-in-law, and found the experience of keeping secrets from her stressful to say the least. My son knew only that they had to be in a certain place at a certain time; I dare not tell my grandchildren about the surprise in case they gave my secret away. It was only at the right time that the plan could be unveiled, and thankfully everyone invited kept the secret and it was a successful party time!

We often think of secrets and mysteries in this way: knowledge that is hidden from us. There are many things we do not fully know or understand; sometimes, at the ‘right time’, we may find answers to our questions (she found it frustrating not quite knowing where they were going, what to wear and so on; my son could not understand why I would not tell him how this event was going to affect the rest of the weekend, but that was because friends of his were travelling from the Midlands to the party and I did not know what their long-term plans were!) Sometimes, we never really understand the answers to our questions; maybe we just cannot comprehend the answers we get.

The Bible frequently talks about the mystery of Christ and of the gospel (see Romans 16:25, 1 Corinthians 2:7, Ephesians 3:4-9), but this is not a secret as such, simply a revelation of God that became clear at a certain point in history. Much of the book of Revelation seems mysterious to us, including the ‘seven thunders’ in Revelation 10, which John was told to seal up and not write down. (Why mention something if you cannot explain it?!) We may well feel frustrated about the many things we do not understand about God’s ways, and we often ask questions about why God, the God of righteousness and holiness, allows evil to go unpunished and His own people to be crushed and broken on every hand. We still do not have answers that fully satisfy us as we read the Bible, but we are reassured that “God by His Son, the Heir of all things, will wrest the government of the world from the iron grasp of Satan, confine him as a prisoner in the abyss for 1,000 years, finally casting him into the lake of fire for eternity, and then rule and reign in manifested power and glory” (J. Hampton Keathley III), as the rest of the book makes clear. Sometimes, we really do have to wait and see…

John 6 is a long chapter featuring an extraordinary day: a day when Jesus learned of the death of John the Baptist, taught crowds of people for hours, fed thousands of people miraculously and then walked on water to reach His disciples in a boat on Lake Galilee. If ever there was a day which demonstrated the secret to Jesus’s power, this was it.

Jesus did not perform miracles because He was God. He did miracles through the power of the Holy Spirit to show us that this is how life can be when we are connected to God Himself. After He had fed the five thousand, He sent His disciples off, dismissed the crowd and then went to spend time in prayer, alone, with God. Prayer was the very foundation of His life and He knew that He could not give out constantly without being filled again by God’s Spirit. This is a very important spiritual principle in life. Ministry is about service and giving, but we can only serve and give from the overflow of our relationship with God. We have to take time out to be alone with God, just as Jesus did. We need to seek God’s face, in the privacy of that one-to-one relationship. If we do not, we will have nothing to give and will not be able to serve people effectively, for our service must be based on the love of God which He pours into us and must be rooted in the very nature of God.

The Gospels show us Jesus rising early in the morning and going to pray outdoors (Mark 1:35) or, as in this case, praying at night. It doesn’t really matter where we pray. It doesn’t really matter when we pray. What matters is that we are praying, that we are seeking God for His presence and power in our lives. Some of us are morning larks, and for us, praying very early in the morning is our fuel. Others are night owls and are rejuvenated by prayer late at night. Some of us will have a quiet place in the house for prayer; others will enjoy praying while walking the dog or being outdoors. It doesn’t matter which we find suits our personalities best. What matters is that we all need time alone with God, without distractions, without other people, time spent simply enjoying His presence and pouring out our hearts to Him.

This time alone with God becomes the fuel for all we need. The good news for us, as Peter discovered when he walked on the water like Jesus, is that through reliance on the Father and dependence on the Holy Spirit, we too can be used by God to do miracles. Jesus did not do miracles because He was God. He did miracles through the power of the Holy Spirit to show us that this is how life can be when we are connected to God Himself. We often focus on the fact that Peter sank when he took his eyes of Jesus, but the truth is that he experienced the same miracle that Jesus did when his eyes were on Jesus. As we rely on God, as we remain connected and plugged in to Him, we can do the miracles He did. ‘Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.’ (John 14:12)

As we continued looking at the miracles (signs) in John’s Gospel, this morning we looked at when Jesus walked on water to the disciples in a storm on Lake Galilee (John 6:16-24). This was a sign which followed on from the feeding of the five thousand and reminds us that the miracles Jesus did demonstrated who He was and His authority and power over any situation. Often, we have compartmentalised faith, believing God can work in some situations (e.g. in healing or provision) but not in others (e.g. in rescuing us from stormy situations.) John is at pains to show us Jesus working in every situation life can throw at us to remind us there is nothing beyond His capability.

This miracle features in other gospels (Matt 14:22-34 and Mark 6:45-52), where different aspects are predominant (the stretching of Peter’s faith as he too walks on water or the power of Jesus over the elements, for example.) In John’s Gospel, what we see most plainly is how the presence of Jesus dispels fear and allows the disciples to reach shore safely. The presence of Jesus with us is what will bring us through all situations and what will dispel fear. This message ‘do not be afraid’ is repeated throughout the Bible. It’s what the angel said to Mary when he brought her news of God’s intentions to make her the mother of the Son of God. (Luke 1:30) It’s what the angels said to the shepherds when announcing the birth of Jesus (Luke 2:10) and to the women after Jesus’s resurrection. (Matt 28:5) It’s what Jesus Himself said to those women when He first met them on Easter Sunday: “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.” (Matt 28:10) God’s word to us is so often ‘don’t be afraid’; all the more so when we meet Him in His splendour and glory, as John discovered later in that great revelation: ‘When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.’ (Rev 1:17-18) Jesus may be all-powerful, but He does not want His people to live in fear and terror. He comes to us with reassurance and comfort, even as we are awed by His presence. Fear is not part of the Christian’s clothing. God does not want us to be fearful, terrified people. Perfect love casts our fear. (1 John 4:18)

It is the presence of Jesus with us which transforms our situations. We do not necessarily sail through life on a smooth sea. The disciples, it seems, frequently ran into problems when crossing the Sea of Galilee; on another occasion, Jesus speaks peace to the wind and storms and stuns the disciples by His authority over the weather. (Mark 4:35-41) But every situation these disciples – many of whom were experienced fishermen – faced on the water was overcome by the presence of Jesus with them. On that occasion, He was in the boat with them asleep throughout the raging storm and they woke Him up, feeling that He did not care about them. He then spoke peace to the winds and storm and rebuked the disciples for their lack of faith.We often feel that Jesus is not with us during our times of trial or that He is (like then) asleep on the job. But the truth is that we overcome through His presence with us (see Romans 8:35-39, 1 John 5:4-5, Rev 2:7, 11, 17, 26; Rev 3:5, 12, 21). If we will accept the presence of Jesus into every area of our lives – not trying to live compartmentalised lives – then we will find we too can overcome through His love and His presence.