Sunday Aug 21st 11 am (Traditional Service) "Jesus Walks"

In one paragraph

This message came from John 6, working through the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus walking on the water, and the long discourse on the bread of life that followed. Pastor Carl traced a single question through all of it: Jesus walks, and the question is whether we will walk with him. The sermon closed at the moment when the crowd had thinned out and only the twelve remained. The immediate...

Read together

1. Amos 3:3 quoted to ask whether two can walk together unless they be agreed, applied to walking with Jesus as the body of Christ
2. Deuteronomy 18:15 Moses promises God will raise up a prophet like him, which the crowd applied to Jesus after the feeding of the five thousand
3. John 6:14-69 the primary passage for the sermon, covering the walking on water and the bread of life discourse
4. Matthew 14 parallel account of the feeding of five thousand and Jesus walking on water, including Peter stepping out of the boat
5. Mark 6 parallel account of the feeding and walking on water, noted as drawing on Peter's own telling

Talk about it

1. Pastor Carl opened with the image from Amos 3:3, 'Can two walk together unless they be agreed?' Where do you see agreement or disagreement in how people around you understand what it means to follow Jesus?
2. When the crowd tried to make Jesus king by force, he withdrew to the mountain alone to pray. What does that tell us about how Jesus handled the gap between what people wanted from him and what the Father had sent him to do?
3. Jesus told the crowd, 'This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.' The crowd had just witnessed the feeding of five thousand and still asked for another sign. What do you think was behind that, and do you recognize that impulse in yourself?
4. Many of the disciples walked away after the bread of life discourse, saying 'This is a hard teaching.' What made it hard for them, and what does it look like in practice today when following Jesus costs something we were not expecting to give?
5. Peter answered Jesus by saying, 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the very words of eternal life.' Has there been a moment in your own life when you faced the same choice the twelve faced, and what kept you from walking away?