Amen. If you have your Bibles, I'll invite you
to go ahead and grab those and turn on over to
Matthew chapter 8. Today we're going to start
our reading in Matthew chapter 8 verse 23. Matthew
8, 23. And we're in our series called Who Is
He? As Jesus begins to reveal a little bit more
about who he is after the Sermon on the Mount.
And it began with Jesus, the Lord over our afflictions.
The Lord over our afflictions, that our pains
and our illnesses and our sickness, our frailty
as humans are not some rogue, unaccountable thing,
but there is a Lord over them, and that Lord
is Jesus. And today we're going to be looking
at this other aspect of Lord over nature or Lord
over creation. And in Matthew chapter 8, beginning
in verse 23, it reads, a violent storm arose
on the sea so that the boat was being swamped
by the waves. But Jesus kept sleeping. So the
disciples came and woke him up saying, Lord,
save us, we are going to die. And he said to
them, why are you afraid, you of little faith?
Then he got up, rebuked the winds and the sea,
and there was great calm. And the men were amazed
and asked, what kind of man is this? Even the
winds and the sea obey him. This is God's word.
Today's passage isn't a promise that God will
always calm our external storms. Instead, Today
it shows us who Jesus truly is, Lord over all
creation, Lord of nature, and invites us to trust
him to calm the storm within, even as the waters
rage around. It would be very easy to preach
this scripture a certain way, done a thousand
times before, and it goes something like this.
Jesus is stronger than any of the storms of life.
That you will encounter. And he will calm the
storm. If you don't fear. And you just believe
a little bit more. Jesus is stronger than any
storm in your life. That you're going to encounter.
But you just need to believe a little bit more.
And not fear. And if it's not calm yet. It's
because you haven't believed enough. Keep believing.
Don't stop believing. And it is. Literally the
title of a number of YouTube videos on this passage,
Calming the Storms of Life. Calming the Storms
of Life. And don't get me wrong, I believe Jesus
can absolutely bring peace and solution to whatever
is going on in our lives. He is 100 % able, amen?
But what happens when your marriage doesn't get
better? After you have believed and prayed and
prayed and prayed and prayed, what then? What
happens if the sickness wasn't healed, even though
you prayed and cried out and sang a bunch of
times Waymaker at the top of your lungs? Waymaker,
miracle worker, promise keeper, light of the
world. What happens if the healing doesn't come?
What happens when your flawlessly crafted and
curated vision for life falls apart to dust?
Who is he now? The circumstances surrounding
the birth, the baptism, the testing and the teaching
of Jesus have all been screaming at the top of
the lungs, this is the Messiah King. This is
the promised one. This is God in the flesh who
is bringing the kingdom of God, the restoration
of all things in himself. It's been there on
the eight chapters we've been reading up to this
point. It's been everywhere. Yes, Jesus can calm
the storms of life, but Matthew 8, 23 through
27 is first and foremost about who Jesus is.
And so let's see how the text itself unveils
the identity of Jesus. But before we get into
the text we just read, there were a few verses
you may have noticed that were between what we
covered last week and what we covered this week.
And I'm just going to read them and then summarize
them really quickly because I think they set
up where we're going today. Verse 18 said, when
Jesus saw a large crowd around him, he gave the
order to go to the other side of the sea. And
a scribe approached him and said, Jesus, I will
follow you wherever you go. And Jesus told him,
foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests,
but the son of man has no place to lay his head.
Lord, another of his disciples said, first let
me go bury my father. But Jesus told him, follow
me and let the dead bury their own dead. We don't
have time to go verse by verse through this section
today, but I think in helping to set up the next
section, I'll summarize it this way. Jesus is
not handing out fast passes to an easy life.
He's calling for all in loyalty. And don't expect
comfort. This mission isn't about some plush
pillow or me time. It is about sacrifice, sacrifice,
and more sacrifice. That will be the name of
the game in following Jesus. Jesus accepts no
half -hearted tagalongs. You're in or you're
out. There's no cozy backup plan, no delayed
obedience allowed. He calls for our immediate
yes. The Lutheran scholar, Chad Bird, he puts
it this way, he says it this way. Yes, God has
a wonderful plan for your life. To crucify, bury,
and resurrect you with Christ. Now you know.
Now you know. And some of us, I think today,
are half -hearted tagalongs. And you thought
you signed up for an easy life. You thought you
signed up. to plug directly into the power of
heaven to make your life smooth sailing. Now
you know. That's not the case. The disciples
had just heard, witnessed Jesus saying how costly
it is to follow him. And now they're going to
experience it because they're going to be asked
to get into a boat with him and firsthand recognize
the cost. The storm is going to threaten their
lives. If you're taking notes, we first encounter,
number one, the crisis. The crisis. As he got
into the boat, his disciples followed him, and
suddenly a violent storm arose on the sea so
that the boat was being swamped by the waves,
but Jesus kept sleeping. Oh, to have that skill.
I'll note this front to front. Jesus intentionally
led his disciples on this boat trip. He commanded
them to get the boat. Jesus knew what was going
on. He said, let's get this boat, let's get on
the sea. He led his disciples onto this boat.
And we have to know that Jesus will lead us into
challenges where our faith is tested. He will
lead us into challenges where our faith is tested.
Storms are inevitable in our lives. And being
with Jesus doesn't mean you avoid all the storms.
The disciples followed Jesus into the boat. into
the storm. And Jesus doesn't offer an escape
from our hardships, but he does offer us presence
in our hardships. His presence. The presence
of the storm doesn't mean the absence of God.
The presence of the storm doesn't mean the absence
of God. And I think some of us need to know that
today. Now, they're heading out on this boat
into the Sea of Galilee. And the Sea of Galilee
is known for sudden, unpredictable, violent storms
that just arise out of nowhere. But also, beyond
the natural, the sea was also viewed as the symbol
of wild, untamable power. In Jewish writing,
the sea was a place and a power of darkness and
evil that was threatening and out of hand. beyond
their ability to tame it. And so a violent storm
comes on suddenly, and Matthew, Matthew recalling
this, and here's a little sidebar, Matthew is
writing this many years later. Here's how you
should imagine this with Matthew. Matthew's in
a church. He's one of you guys attending a church.
And he decides at some point in time, I'm going
to take all of my writings and my recollections
of Jesus and I'm going to put them down on paper
and write them so that y 'all know about this
Jesus that I knew and that I loved before he
died and resurrected and went to heaven. This
was written in the context of a fellowship with
people like you and I. And Matthew communicating
that. And Matthew is choosing. He's a part of
an editorial process where he's trying to tell
us something. And his choices of words and his
choices of which scenes to put with other scenes.
And here Matthew doesn't use the normal Greek
word for storm that you would expect to see here.
Instead he uses a word, seismo. Seismo. Have
you been keeping up on the news recently? There
are some things going on over in Thailand and
Myanmar and Tonga this morning. The earth is
what? It's quaking. And we Californians, we know
all about that, right? That's our major natural
disaster that we're all prepared for is the earthquakes
that are coming. We know all about earthquakes.
Well, Matthew is saying that the storm that they
encountered on the Sea of Galilee is a seismoportion.
Basically, it's the word that we get seismic
from, the Greek word. It's a seismic storm. And
so what is he saying? He's probably saying something
like, this isn't a normal storm, but it is a
earth -shaking storm. It is a supernatural storm.
Is this an attempt to take out the Messiah by
Satan? Is this an attempt for the darkness to
kill the Messiah before he does his work? Is
this the darkness reacting to verse 16 that just
came where Jesus with a word is casting out demons?
Jesus is doing ministry and he's casting out
demons and he's healing people. Is this storm
the result of supernatural powers resisting God's
kingdom come? If you want to know more about
supernatural powers, Satan and demons, and Jesus
as Lord over those things, that's next week.
So come next week, we're going to dig into that
stuff. But Matthew is saying, there's something
going on here beyond what is natural. This storm
is not normal. But if it is, Jesus doesn't seem
all that concerned with it, does he? He's asleep.
He's unfazed by the torrent. Probably exhausted
from the demands of ministry, he ministered all
night the night before. But the disciples, oh,
they're not sleeping. And so if you're taking
notes, the next thing that we hear is the cry.
The cry. So the disciples came and woke him up
saying, Lord, save us, we're going to die. And
I just remind a key word that we've seen through
this chapter. And when you, there was an old
thing that I remember in Bible college, they
said repetition equals significance. Repetition
equals significance. So when you see something
repeated over and over again, a word or a phrase
in a certain chapter or verse or book, take note
of it. Write it down. This is a key word. What
is this word trying to communicate? Well, the
word Lord has been repeated in this chapter.
Verse 2, verse 6, verse 8, verse 21, verse 25.
And it's how the people are approaching Jesus
and communicating with him. They always begin
with Lord. Lord. And here we see it again. Lord,
save us. We're going to die. It would be easy
to think that the disciples' cry for help was
actually a cry for a miracle. If you consider
the stories that were around this, leprosy had
been healed and demons had been cast out. And
so you might think, oh, the disciples, when they
say save us, they're saying, hey, do something
powerful. Do one of those tricks you've got up
your sleeves. But most scholars agree that at
this point, the disciples, they have a very limited
understanding of who Jesus is. and a very immature
understanding of Jesus' power and ability. It's
one thing to cleanse leprosy. It's a whole nother
thing to tame or control the fury of nature,
especially a storm of seismic proportions. And
so it's more likely that the disciples, when
they say, Lord, help us, it's something more
like this. Lord, do something. Like, bro, like
you're in charge. Take the lead here. Tell us
what to do. If nothing else, grab a bucket. We're
sinking. And you're sleeping. I'll also plant
this in your mind too as you think about this
because you may have overlooked it. Some of these
disciples, they are expert, lifelong fishermen
on the Sea of Galilee. And they're crying out,
Lord. Save us. Something about this story is
supernatural. Overwhelming. I'll have you think
about a moment in your life when the situation
was so overwhelming that you felt helpless. Maybe
it was a medical scare, a health issue or a financial
catastrophe or a broken relationship. We live
up in Georgetown, me and my family. It's a beautiful
place to live. Pines, madrones, oak trees, everywhere.
Some of the pines or the fir trees that we have
up there, they stand upward of 120 feet tall.
Just beautiful and majestic. And it's wonderful
to look at and hear the wind blow through those
trees, you know, and smell the smells of the,
we're about 2 ,600 feet in elevation, so the
hills up there. It's all fine and dandy and fun
and beautiful until a snowstorm comes. And after
a week plus of constant rain, it saturates the
ground, it saturates the roots and the trees.
We then had a once in a hundred year snowstorm
hit us, which knocked out our power and gave
us feet of snow and trapped us in our house.
And wet ground, saturated branches, heavy snow,
those are an interesting combination. What ends
up happening to trees in that circumstance? branches
fall, trees snap in half, and many trees, especially
our oaks, uprooted and just fell over. They're
like, we're out, peace out, we're done. And there
were a couple of nights where the power is out,
we're sitting in our house, we're listening intently
to the sounds going on outside, because every
few hours, we would hear a tree beginning to
uproot. And we would listen, and we'd get tense,
and then the ground would shake. But the house
wouldn't crash down on us. And we thought, okay.
We made it through another one. And another one,
and another one. At one point, a big branch did
hit the house, right over where two of our boys
sleep in their room. It didn't pierce through.
But we were terrified. We were. We were scared.
We were worried. We didn't know. And we were
out of control. We could, we were helpless. There's
snow in, we were snowed in. We couldn't get out
of the house. All this was happening around us.
It was just listen and wait and pray and hope
to God that it doesn't come through the house.
But here's the deal with a situation like that
or what the disciples have found themselves in
or many of the stories that you could tell of
a moment when you were in a place where you felt
helpless. That fear always reveals what we truly
trust in. Fear reveals where we've put our hope.
Fear reveals where we stand. And the disciples'
panic revealed that they had misaligned their
faith. It wasn't in proper alignment. But, enter
number three, the Christ. He said to them, Why
are you afraid, you of little faith? And then
he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea,
and there was a great calm. Literally, Jesus
says something like, hey, little faith ones,
what's up with the fear? Hey, little faith ones.
Some of us are little faith ones, aren't we?
And Jesus addresses two things here. He addresses
the disciples first. Why are you afraid? And
then he rebukes the storm. And God oftentimes
addresses our hearts before he addresses our
circumstances, doesn't he? Because what we've
seen throughout Matthew so far is that God is
far more concerned about what's going on in here
than what we do on the outside. The majority
of the Sermon on the Mount was to undo the thinking
that it was only about external religious observance
that honored God, but it was really about the
motive and where your heart was set on trusting.
Was your heart set on trusting God or was your
heart set on trusting yourself? Was this an attempt
to save yourself through your righteousness or
your righteous acts or to obligate God to save
you because of what you've done or had you put
your hope and faith and trust in Jesus alone?
And we see that again here. Jesus is addressing
the disciples first. What's going on in your
heart? Why are you afraid? Which sounds like
a ludicrous question considering what's going
on around them. But he still says, why are you
afraid? Some of you have been like, give Jesus
a lip, right? I'll tell you why I'm afraid. You've
been sleeping and you don't even know what's
going on around us. What's wrong with you? Yeah,
yeah, son of God, but get up here and grab a
bucket. But I love that there's so much grace
here because Jesus could have come out of the,
you know, out of the sleep and he could have
come and said, I rebuke you disciples first.
And until you get your doctrine and your theology
straight about who I am and what I'm here to
do, I'm not going to save you. In fact, I'll
let this ship go down. The angels will carry
me to the land and I'll start over. Right? That's
what I would have done. Some of you are like,
yeah, you would have. No, but try again. Okay,
I'll give you the right answer now. But instead
of saying, get everything straight, he says,
you know what? I'm gonna challenge your understanding.
At this moment, I'm gonna challenge your understanding
and get you in a place where when I do what I'm
about to do, you're gonna have to examine your
preconceived notion of who I am. It's going to
blow your mind. Just wait. Another thing I want
to point out, though, that he doesn't say, though,
is he doesn't say, hey, friends, you didn't say
the right combination of words, or you didn't
have enough faith in your magical words to get
something done. Get me to do something here.
He doesn't say, hey, work up some more incantations
and get this going on. Instead, he exposes their
lack of trust in who he is and what that means
for their peace. Because true biblical faith
is a posture of confidence in Jesus' authority,
in his love and compassion and presence, even
and especially when the storm is raging around
us. That's the most important moment when our
faith is tried. And biblical faith stands in
stark contrast to faith that is taught by prosperity
or word of faith teachers, which they reduce
trust in God. all the way down to a transactional
formula. Name it, claim it, and get it. Name
it, claim it, and get it. Get health and wealth
or success on demand. And that version of faith
can be destructive because it puts the force
on our efforts or on spiritual power that we
must somehow get in order to manipulate outcomes
rather than on the sovereign grace of God. who
works for our ultimate good and his glory. Biblical
faith, by contrast, never makes promises of constant
comfort or easy living. Instead, it gives us
the confidence that our heavenly father is with
us and for us, even when the boat feels like
it's sinking. You guys, if you grew up in a church
and you're around my age, thereabouts, or a little
younger, a little older, You might remember Rack,
Shack, and Benny. Anyone remembers Rack, Shack,
and Benny from the Veggie Tales? Yeah. Rakshak
and Benny, well, it's just referencing Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego from the story out of Daniel
in the Bible. And this is an amazing story of
trust in the Lord because they're about to be
thrown into a furnace because they will not bow
down to the king of their time and more or less
worship him as if he was a god. They refuse to
do it, even to the point of their death. And
when they're addressing the king and they're
answering why they refuse to do it, they say,
Our God will save us from the flame of the furnace.
Our God will save us. But even if he doesn't,
we will not bow down to you. We will not fear.
We will not doubt your goodness. We will not
doubt God's goodness in this situation, in the
circumstances. Even if he doesn't come through,
that won't change things. We put our hope and
faith in. We believe God will save us, but even
if he doesn't. And so I want to push it a little
bit further because I think sometimes we think,
yes, I want to trust God as the winds and waves
bat around us, that God will pull me through.
But we still have a little bit of that part that
says, but he's going to pull me through. He's
going to stop the winds and the waves. He's going
to get me out of this situation. He's going to
make my relationship better or my financial situation
better or my marriage better. He's going to do
something miraculous. Any moment now, I want
to push it further and say that even if the boat
goes down and you drown, God is still good. Even
if the boat goes down and he doesn't save you,
he is still worthy of praise and honor and glory.
Even if the boat goes down and you don't get
that miraculous rescue or that outcome that you
were hoping for, our hope in Christ doesn't evaporate
because the real presence or the presence of
real faith isn't marked by everything working
out in our lives exactly the way that we want.
But the presence of true faith is our hearts
anchored to the one who is good. Our hearts anchored
to the one who is sovereign and the one who is
with us in every outcome. Even if the water is
up to our neck or goes over our head. The promise
of scripture isn't that no storm will ever harm
us. The promise of scripture is that we belong
to a God who will never forsake us, even when
the worst happens. And in that sense, genuine
faith, true faith, is less about demanding certain
results. And more about clinging to a person
who holds us with every last wave, even if the
boat sinks. And at this point in the story, Jesus
gets up, rebukes the wind, the seas, and it's
calm. And it's the most anticlimactic moment
in the story. It's like an afterthought. It's
like he's like, And it's done. He does this powerful
act of calming the seas and the winds. And all
Matthew gives it is Jesus rebukes the winds and
the seas and they're calm. I love that. It is
so beneath his ability. But now there's another
storm brewing because the disciples are now faced
with number four, the challenge. The men were
amazed and asked, What kind of man is this? Even
the winds and the sea obey him. Do you hear that?
They don't say, who is this man? They say, what
kind of man is this? What kind of man is this?
What's going on is they're having like a category
error. Who you thought he was, he's not. Whatever
category they had put him in before was utterly
shattered when this took place. And we might
gloss right over it in this story, but why? Why
was their category shattered? Well, these men
who are in the boat, these men are Torah or scripture
reading and memorizing guys. They love the scripture
because the scripture and the study of scripture
teaches them about the God that they love and
they serve and they worship. They love it. And
what I'd like to think in that moment as Jesus
stands up and he rebukes the wind and the seas.
That at that very moment, the disciples are there
and the words of the Torah, the words of scripture,
which shaped their deepest conception of who
God is, begin to draw to mind scriptures. And
one of the disciples, the words of Job flashes
across his mind. And he goes, wait, who enclosed
the sea behind doors? when it burst from the
womb, when I made the clouds its garments and
total darkness its blanket, when I determined
the boundaries and put its bars and doors in
place, when I declared, you may come this far,
but no further, you proud waves, stop here. And
one of the disciples, maybe Psalm 65, comes to
mind and he's seized by the words because it
was just in his morning devotions. And he was
reading it and he said, you answer us in righteousness
with awe -inspiring works, God of our salvation,
the hope of all the ends of the earth and of
the distant seas. You establish the mountains
by your power. You are robed with strength. You
silence the roar of the seas and the roar of
the waves and the tumult of the nations. And
maybe another disciple, Psalm 89, grips him and
he says, Lord, God of armies, who is strong like
you, Lord? Your faithfulness surrounds us. You
rule the raging seas, and when its waves surge,
you still them. Who talks to the sea like it
is a child that they have created and it must
obey them? Who does that? Like my kids, they
know the look. I don't have to say anything.
I can look and it's done. Conversation's over.
Jesus just does something. We don't know. Did
he do a hand motion? Did Macarena dance? Boom.
Whatever he did, it obeyed. And what the disciples
are asking, what these scripture -loving guys
are asking is, in essence, Whoa. In all of our
reading, only God does these things. Only God
does these things. In all of our scripture reading,
all of our devotions, only God does this. John
said, in the beginning was the word. And the
word was with God. And the word was God. He was
with God in the beginning. All things were created
through him. And apart from him, not one thing
was created that has been created. You know,
who's the wind in the sea's daddy? The one who
just spoke and said, silence. Jesus is indeed
the divine word. Through him, all things have
their existence. And he sustains all things in
himself. This text isn't telling us to expect
that every storm will vanish in our lives. It's
telling us that the one in the boat with us is
the sovereign God who placed boundaries around
the sea and said no further. And that changes
everything about how we endure the storm. The
peace and the calm are in who he is, not in what
we expect him to do for us. I don't know. The
storms are actually useful. Do you know that?
I'll bet our older folks in this room could tell
us more than anyone. The storms are actually
useful. Because they drive us to acknowledge
our dependence on Jesus when we go astray and
we look to other things. They drive us to acknowledge
his dominion and reign as king over all things.
And the storms wake us up and invite us to trust
again anew the sovereign king of all things.
But I understand, what do we do with our unanswered
prayers? What do we do when our prayers for healing
or restoration never materialize? What do we
do for our unanswered prayers for restoration
of health or relationships or so on? And I would
say that those prayers are not useless at all.
Because even the prayers that are not answered
point us somewhere. They orient us somewhere.
They put us toward true north. Even our unanswered
ones. Because they ultimately point us to a new
heaven and a new earth. to a greater restoration
of all things than we could ever experience here
on earth. When Jesus healed the leper, the leper
was healed, but the leper still died. When Jesus
called Lazarus out, I haven't met him, have you?
Because he died, was brought back to life, and
then he died again at some point in time. He
ain't around anymore, unless you find him and
let me know, because I'd love to meet him. That'd
be awesome. But he ain't around anymore. Because
all of those miraculous healings and all of those
miracles of life and restoration, we all know
they're temporary. But all of them will be ultimately
answered and fulfilled in what those prayers
point to. A reality we know only as a faint whisper
that will is to come and that is a new heavens
and a new earth. They point us forward to a future
with no more tears, no pain, a place where the
very foundation of all things is God himself
who is unshakable, unsinkable, immovable. I love
this scripture, Revelation 21. Then I saw a new
heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and
the first earth had passed away. And the sea
was no more. And it always struck me. I was recently
studying in a Bible study. And it struck me again.
The sea was no more. Why did he put that in there?
And if you understand that first century understanding
of the ocean, the sea, untamable, unwieldy, place
you go out to die. Who knows what monsters are
out in that sea? There's a promise that in the
new heavens and new earth, the sea is no more.
The sea is no more. The promise helps you face
the storms that we face. The storms we come in
contact, they are terrifying. But you and I have
to not forget that it is the one who sails with
us in the boat that matters most. The one who
rebukes the winds and the waves. The one who
walked out of his own grave. And the one who
promises a future where that wild, untamable
sea is no more. I think Matthew is trying to
get us to understand who Jesus is. Will you join
me in praying? Father, we thank you for your
word. And we pray that we would be awestruck
in wonder by you, the one who goes with us. the
immovable, unshakable presence, that through
all the storms and the trials, through all the
testing, even unto the end, we can cling to Jesus
and have hope and peace in our very core, in
our heart. That doesn't mean that any one of
the external circumstances change, but you can
change us. You can do something in us that changes
our perspective and our hope. I pray for those
who are here today, Lord, who have come in burdened
down and heavy. Those who have put their hope,
Lord, in a sort of prosperity, name it and claim
it type understanding of you that you are a power
source to tap into to make my life what I want
it to be. I pray that you Would gently and without
your grace. Teach us. Teach us to trust in who
you are. Teach us to love you for who you are
and you alone. Teach us to be in wonder and awe
of you. And to know that it is sufficient that
you are with us. Come what may. In all the trials
and storms. and all the relationships that fall
to pieces and all the health scares and issues
that we have to face and deal with, that you
are with us and you will never leave us or forsake
us. But may we not hear in that, Lord, that you
will change every circumstance and situation
the way that we want it, but may we hear in that
that you will never abandon us and that you are
ultimately pulling us and drawing us forward
to our future hope. An eternity with you. All
that we have is transient and passing anyway.
Everything that we have is temporary. And Lord,
I pray that while we may be stewards of certain
things in our lives at this time, relationships,
kids, we would recognize all that we have is
yours. And all that we have is temporary. That
you are eternal. And we would cling to you, all
of our strength, trusting in you as our firm
foundation. I pray that you would bring us peace.
We thank you, God. You are the God of power.
You are the God of wonder. You are the God who
holds and sustains all things. You are worthy
of our worship. We thank you in Jesus' name.