Storm

[00:00:05] Please be seated. [00:00:07] Oh, I'm sorry. We stand for this prayer, don't we? [00:00:12] Pardon me. [00:00:14] As we come to hear from God and his word, let's approach him once more in prayer, seeking his help. [00:00:21] O Lord our God. We sing of storms, we read of storms. And we confess that we live on a life that has lots of darkness, lots of clouds, even stormy times, things that are uncertain for us, things that cause us great fear. [00:00:44] And many situations, some of them caused by our own foolishness or sin, others that come for other reasons, and by your providence, all of them. And yet many of them, we struggle to know what to do, how to move forward. We lack wisdom, and it feels like we're in a cloud. [00:01:08] But we thank you, O God, that week after week we can come before you be reminded of your goodness, of your almighty power. And we thank you especially that this special means of grace, this way that you work in us by your word. We thank you for this. And we thank you that it is especially given to us, like a light shining in our darkness, a lamp that illuminates the pathway before us. [00:01:43] And sometimes it is like a big searchlight that you use to. To find us in the midst of our storms, like a search and rescue mission. Your word comes and it illuminates where we are drowning. And you draw us to yourself, to safety, to salvation, to safe harbor and haven. And Lord, we thank you for this. And so we come to hear your Word with great hope that you administer to each of us and to our families according to our needs, that your word would sustain us and draw us ever closer to Jesus, our Savior, in whose name we pray. Amen. [00:02:25] Now you may be seated. [00:02:30] I told them I'd flub at least one of these up downs. So there you go. [00:02:38] Now God speaks to us in the reading of the Word. We're going to read Matthew, chapter 8, Matthew 8, 2327. [00:02:47] This is Jesus calming of the storm. [00:02:51] Actually, I'm going to start reading just a few verses before we'll start reading. In verse 18, we're going to reference this briefly, but our sermon text will be verses 23 through 27. Hear now God's word beginning in Matthew 8:18. Now, when Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. [00:03:21] And the scribe came up and said to him, teacher, I will follow you wherever you go. [00:03:29] Jesus said to him, foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. [00:03:40] Another of the disciples said to him, lord, let Me first go and bury my father. [00:03:49] Jesus said to him, follow me and leave the dead to bury their own dead. And now our sermon text. And he went, and when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves. [00:04:14] But he was asleep, and they went and woke him, saying, save us, Lord, we are perishing. [00:04:26] And he said to them, why are you afraid, O you of little faith? [00:04:36] Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea. And there was a great calm. [00:04:45] And the men marveled, saying, what sort of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey him? [00:04:55] Thus far, the reading of God's word. [00:05:01] I'm told you have storms around here or something like storms. Now, I haven't found out anything yet about what these monsoon rains are like. I don't know if it's just a steady downpour or if it's just a steady drizzle for days on end or if it's big, terrifying storms with. I'm getting nods here. Lots of. Lots of wind. [00:05:23] Yeah. That just pours down and beats against your house. Is this what. Okay, so they're kind of like the hurricanes in the Southeast, maybe, then a bit. Or what I grew up with in Japan, the typhoon, as we called them, the taihu or the typhoons, as you would say, that hit the west coast here off the Pacific. [00:05:47] Those were incredibly powerful storms. [00:05:53] They would. I don't know if that happens around here, but usually when there would be a typhoon in Japan, we would hear on the news that, you know, roofs had been ripped off of houses and this sort of a thing. It was a. It was always when typhoon season would come. It was. I loved storms and I loved rain as a little kid. So for me, it was exciting, but it was also a little bit terrifying. Right. And you know how storms go, particularly if they're big storms. A lot of times it starts with some wind. [00:06:27] Maybe it begins to pick up and get stronger and stronger, and then you start to see some clouds rolling in. And, you know, sooner or later you get a few raindrops that that heavy wind is blowing, and they start to hit either the side of the windows, you hear them hitting the windows, or you feel them. If you're a silly little kid outside playing in this kind of weather, and then you know that the heavy rain is about to come. Right. [00:06:53] And then you're. All of a sudden you're in the middle of the storm, and it seems like as much rain is Falling as the wind is blowing. It's just intense and it blows and trees get bent over and sometimes you see limbs ripped off. Sometimes trees even get uprooted. Some of the biggest things, most powerful living things we have in terms of their size and how sturdy they are. You know, we build houses. Houses, even big buildings like this out of wooden trees. Right. And yet storms can rip these things up. [00:07:27] And of course, there's all the destruction that comes from flooding. If there's lots and lots and lots of water, all of a sudden. I heard that you get flash floods here, right? Yeah. So you know about that. [00:07:39] But this doesn't. It kind of. There's a cadence to it, right? It builds up, it picks up, then it comes and then it's furious. For 30 minutes or hours. I've been through storms that lasted several days, but then at the end it kind of tapers off, right? [00:07:56] The wind starts to die down. Maybe there's less rain. And finally it's a gentle breeze and a pitter patter. And then the sky is clear and the sun is out again and everything's calm again. That's how normal storms go. [00:08:10] We're familiar with them. [00:08:13] This storm is a little different. And we'll see some things about that that seem a little different than normal storms. [00:08:20] But the storm doesn't end the way we're used to storms ending. It doesn't end with gentle rain and a gentle breeze. It ends like that. Jesus speaks and he combs the the storm. It's over in an instant. It goes from raging, things being destroyed, people thinking they're going to die, to a glassy sea and clear skies. [00:08:47] We want to look at how Jesus calms the storm this evening. That will be our theme, Jesus calming the storm. [00:08:54] First, looking at how Jesus and the disciples enter the storm. [00:09:01] First, how they enter the storm. Secondly, their faith through the storm, Entering the storm, Faith through the storm. And then thirdly, and finally the calming of the storm. And if you'll give me just one moment. [00:09:18] I'm sorry, Matt was bothering me. [00:09:25] Okay, well, we're going to start here, Entering the Storm. Our first point. [00:09:32] The story begins with Jesus and the disciples entering the boat in verse 23. Now, it's interesting, that's kind of where this section, this literary unit begins. But what they're doing is they're following Jesus command that you find. Back in verse 18, Jesus saw a crowd. He gave orders to go over to the other side. So there's this little bit of a backstory. There's a hook pulling us Back into the earlier events of chapter eight. [00:10:09] They're obeying his command. [00:10:13] Jesus gets into the boat, and the disciples prepare the boat and get into it. [00:10:18] They obey and they follow Jesus. The story begins with them obeying Jesus command to get into the boat, to cross over. [00:10:30] There's a little hook here. Then they're obeying Jesus command. That draws us back into some themes, some ideas about what it means to be a disciple, that the story of the Gospel of Matthew has been building for us. In chapter eight here, and I'll summarize them for you three aspects of a disciple that you find in this chapter. The first, and perhaps the most important one is the idea that disciples are those who have faith in Jesus Christ as the Messiah, that he is your savior. You see that in the first two stories pretty clearly. The first story is of a leper who comes to Jesus and he wants Jesus to make him clean. [00:11:16] And he expresses his faith. Jesus, if you're willing, you can make me clean. Jesus says, I'm willing. And the man is cleansed. He's healed of his leprosy. The second story is of a Roman centurion, a Roman officer in the army. He comes to Jesus and he says, lord, I have a servant at home and you can heal him. Would you come, Jesus, and heal him? Jesus. We read in verse 7, Jesus says to him, I will come and heal him. The centurion replies, and here's where we really see the man's faith. And this theme of faith pop out and grab us. He responds, and he says to Jesus, I know about authority. [00:12:09] I'm a centurion in the army. If I tell my soldiers, do this or do that, they go and they obey my word. If I tell my servants at home to do this or do that, they immediately do it. And he says, I'm under authority too. I have superior officers. They command me. I do what they say. [00:12:29] And he says, jesus, I know that you have the authority to heal my servant from right where you stand. [00:12:38] It's his faith, his faith in who Jesus is and the power that Jesus has to heal with a mere will. If you will it, Jesus, it's possible the disciples are those who have faith in Jesus and in his power to save us. [00:12:57] But a couple more ideas are developed and verses 18 and following we read briefly. We read of the two people who come up to Jesus. When Jesus says, we're going to go across the Sea of Galilee to the other side, so get in the boat and get ready and let's go. A scribe comes up and says jesus, I'll follow you wherever you go. [00:13:24] And Jesus says, well, now, really, will you follow? Really? Wherever I go, you know, where I go, there is no home. [00:13:36] I don't have a home to go to. I have no place to lay my head. And if you're going to be a disciple, you may have to follow, leaving your home, your family, everything behind. [00:13:49] You have to obey my commands, follow me, and you have to follow me wherever and whenever and do whatever it is that I call you to do. [00:13:59] So disciples are called to have faith in Jesus, to trust in him as their savior, to obey his commands and to follow him wherever he goes. Okay, there's a summary of chapter 8 here, but that now brings us in to our story. And it's important for this first point of entering the storm. Jesus commands them to get into the boat, to go to the other side. And like good disciples, they obey Jesus. [00:14:27] They got the lesson, we have to go. We have to leave our family behind. We have to go wherever, even if it means crossing the sea and going to gentile territory. That's what the Master says. We're his disciples. We obey his commands. We follow his lead and we go ever go wherever he goes. [00:14:47] So they enter the boat. [00:14:49] But as they enter the boat, what immediately happens? Jesus falls asleep. You go back and you glance over chapter eight and the stories preceding the picture is that Jesus has been working all day long. He's been healing. He healed the leper, he healed the centurion servant, then he healed Peter's mother. He healed people all day long. He's exhausted, he's tired. He gets into the boat and he falls asleep. Immediately, he's wiped out. He's tired. He's a man. He had a long, hard day's work and he fell asleep. [00:15:27] The disciples continue to carry out Jesus orders even though he's asleep. [00:15:33] They cross the Sea of Galilee in the middle of the night. [00:15:40] They are to follow Jesus, to obey his orders wherever, whenever, and no matter what happens. Do you get the imagery here? In the story, they're obeying Jesus and crossing the sea in the middle of the night on the boat. [00:15:58] Even if it means terrible things like leaving family and home behind. We are called to follow Jesus whatever happens and whatever does happen. In this story, a storm happens. [00:16:17] What kind of a storm is it? Well, some storms are not so bad, but we've all established, we all know something about pretty terrible storms that are scary, that cause flooding, damage, threaten lives. [00:16:29] What kind of a storm is this? Is it natural or supernatural story? Isn't clear. It's hard to tell. [00:16:38] But what is clear is it's a great storm. It's a terrible storm. It's a storm that's so great that the waves are covering the boat. [00:16:51] That would be a literal translation. The waves are covering the boat. It says here that the boat was being swamped by the waves. That gives you an idea. [00:17:01] Either it means that the waves are as or taller than the boat. That's pretty terrifying. Or that the waves were crashing over the boat, the bows of the boat, such that the boat was being filled up and it was beginning to sink. Either way, you get the picture. Clearly, the storm is so bad, the boat is in danger of sinking and everyone's in danger of losing his life. [00:17:26] They followed Jesus orders. They followed his lead, and he led them into a terrible storm with great, terrifying danger. [00:17:41] If you're a disciple of Jesus, that's life. [00:17:46] Life following Jesus. It brings trouble. It brings difficulty. Sometimes it brings terrible difficulty. [00:17:56] The Christian life is going to have storms. [00:18:01] You may lose your job for being a Christian or simply in God's providence, your marriage may begin to fall apart. [00:18:10] You may have children who grow up and leave Christ. [00:18:15] You may have trouble in your church. [00:18:19] You may even face persecution, as our brothers and sisters do in many parts of the world. That may be coming here, too. [00:18:27] Jesus promises us, in this world, you will have trouble. [00:18:36] In terms of this story, you might say Jesus is saying, if you follow me, I will lead you into a storm. A storm where the waves become so tall that you think you're going to drown? [00:18:54] Well, that's the first point. Jesus leads them into the storm. [00:18:58] Secondly, we said we would look at the faith through the storm. [00:19:03] What do the disciples do in the storm? [00:19:08] Well, they look around, they see the waves, and they realize pretty quickly there is nothing we can do. [00:19:19] Have you ever been there, talking about storms in the Christian life? Been in a place where you look around and you say, this is hopeless, as far as I can tell. [00:19:30] Maybe it's that you feel like your marriage is done for. There's no possible way forward. [00:19:37] Maybe it's something else. You lose your job and you think, there's no way forward. [00:19:43] We're not going to be able to pay the bills, we're going to miss the mortgage. And then who knows? There's no way forward. [00:19:52] Now, the disciples here, we can tell that at least four of them were seasoned fishermen, right? Peter, Andrew, James and John, two pairs of brothers who fished by the sea. If you learned the rhyme, they knew how to pilot boats and they Knew probably something about storms and avoiding them, but there was no way through this. [00:20:14] What can you do? [00:20:16] They look around and they see that there is only one thing to do. [00:20:23] Go to Jesus. [00:20:25] Only one thing. [00:20:28] They cry out for help to him. Verse 25. They went and woke him, saying, save us, Lord. We are perishing here. You see their faith, don't you? They trust that Jesus. Jesus can save us. [00:20:49] There's faith, real faith on the part of. Well, we know, not Judas, but on the part of the other 11 disciples, there was real faith in Jesus that he would indeed save them. He led them into the storm. There's nothing else to do. We must turn to Jesus for salvation. [00:21:07] What does Jesus do? He doesn't calm the storm right away. [00:21:13] He looks at them and he gently. The language here is gentle. He gently rebukes them for the littleness of their faith. It's a gentle rebuke. You have faith. You came to me. You trust me. [00:21:31] But you need to take a look at your faith, guys. [00:21:35] Perhaps you've been there. I know I've been there many, many times, and I'm sure I'll have many more in this life. Moments where we're going through those storms in life and we cry out to Jesus because it's the only thing left to do. We've tried everything else and perhaps it should have been the first thing we did. [00:21:57] But Jesus gently rebukes them. [00:22:00] He says, you of little faith now, what's going on here? If we look at this carefully, I think we'll find that there are two problems. They're related. They're kind of two sides of the same coin. Two problems with their faith. The first is their fear. [00:22:17] Fear is opposed to faith in Jesus. [00:22:21] It's sort of the opposite of faith in this context. [00:22:25] Jesus asks them, he probes not just their faith, but he probes the problem with their faith, their fear. He says, why are you afraid? [00:22:39] Should be obvious, right? [00:22:43] Waves taller than the boat. The boat sinking. [00:22:47] Why are you afraid? [00:22:50] He's saying, hey, you should know better. There's something you're missing here. [00:22:56] Why are you afraid? So let's probe with Jesus. Let's probe the disciples. Fear. [00:23:03] What are they doing? [00:23:06] They're looking at what? [00:23:09] At the waves and the wind and the storm. [00:23:13] Matthew remembers this clearly as under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He writes these words. He describes the storm and particularly the waves that are swamping the boat very distinctly. It's as though it were just yesterday as he describes this. It's as though he can still feel that Fear he felt as he looked at the wind and the waves. The waves were covering the boat. [00:23:45] They're looking at the storm. [00:23:49] We are perishing. Save us. We are perishing. As they looked at the storm, they knew that they were done for. [00:24:00] They were actively sinking and would soon drown in the depths. This is the fear that's gripped them as what's primarily in view of their mind and heart is the waves around them gripped with fear. What they saw clearly in that moment was storm and death. [00:24:26] The one problem was their fear. [00:24:30] The other problem, the other side of it, going right along with it, is the littleness of their faith. Again, this is gentle probing. They trust Jesus. They're his disciples. They're following him. This isn't a terrible rebuke that you have no faith. [00:24:46] Too much fear, Too much looking at the storm, the problems of life. [00:24:52] Not enough looking at Jesus, not enough faith. [00:24:58] Let's probe their faith. [00:25:00] They had faith, true faith, saving faith. They called out to Jesus. He answered. He saved them. [00:25:08] But their faith was small. [00:25:12] Why? [00:25:15] What did they expect Jesus to do when they cried out for him to save them? I don't know exactly. I don't think we can tell. [00:25:27] But they definitely didn't expect him to do what he did. [00:25:32] They were amazed. They marveled when he stood up and calmed the wind and the waves with a word. [00:25:40] They did not expect that. [00:25:43] Why? [00:25:44] Because their faith was not as great as the faith of the centurion. [00:25:49] The faith of the centurion grasped the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who held all authority and power as the Son of God, so that with a mere word, not even a word, Lord, if you will it, he'll be healed. You see, the centurion grasped fully who Jesus was. [00:26:13] The disciples hadn't yet. [00:26:17] Their faith was little because it grasped too little of who Jesus is. [00:26:24] We probed the disciples faith. We picked on them. Let's probe our faith a little. Let's turn Jesus question on ourselves here. [00:26:33] Why are we so afraid when we go through these terrible trials and they're terrible. I'm not making light of them. The prayer requests I wrote down of people with stage four cancer, people in the hospital for six weeks with waiting treatments that may or may not work for terminal cancer people, children sick with infections, your pastor ill, his voice affected. [00:26:59] These are serious things. [00:27:04] I don't make light of them. But at times we come to passages like this and Jesus gently probes our faith. [00:27:14] They had faith, true faith. So the smallness of our faith doesn't mean that we don't have saving faith. But it may mean that the Lord is using our circumstances, the storms of our life, to push us to grow, to push us, to take our eyes off of our problems and put them on Christ and the greatness of his person, the greatness of his compassion and love for us, his ability and power to carry us through the storms of life. [00:27:47] How great is your fear, how great, how little is your faith, how much do you really believe that Jesus has the power to bring you through the trials and troubles of this life? [00:28:02] There is a comfort here in all of this, though that applies to all of Jesus disciples. And that comfort is the disciples had only a little faith, but it was sufficient to lay hold of salvation in Christ. [00:28:18] You may have a little faith and you will still be saved. [00:28:24] Because we aren't saved because of our faith. We're saved by Christ in whom we put our faith. [00:28:35] So, faith through the storm. We said we would look at the calming of the storm. [00:28:47] If we are to grow in our understanding of who Jesus is and his power to save us, and thus our faith also growing, we should look at what it is that Jesus does to deliver his disciples well. Clearly there is a miracle. [00:29:03] They plead with Jesus for help. Lord, save us. We are perishing. He gets up, he speaks to the wind and the waves. His voice rebukes the water and the wind, and all is still. [00:29:17] The disciples see it for clearly, clearly see it for what it is, and they marvel. [00:29:22] Now, there's two things here that set this event apart. [00:29:27] One, that makes it obvious to all of us that it is a miracle. That is the instant calming of the storm. It's not like normal storms. Going back to our introduction, we talked about how a storm works. It picks up, there's the terrible storm, and then it kind of tapers off and calms down. This was instant and instant. At the words of Jesus speaking to the storm, this was a miracle. But secondly, it was set apart by the way in which Jesus effected the calming of the storm, how he brought it about. [00:30:04] It came by his voice. He spoke and it obeyed him. He spoke and the wind and the waves were still. [00:30:15] His voice set this apart. Moses parted the Red Sea and then brought it crashing back down again in judgment on Pharaoh and his army. [00:30:26] By lifting up a staff, Joshua stopped up the waters of the Jordan by sending the priests with the Ark of the Covenant into the water and it dried up. And when they left, the waters came rushing down again. Elijah closed the heavens by petitioning God in prayer. [00:30:45] Three years later, he prayed again. And God sent rain again. [00:30:52] Later, Elijah again would control the waters of the Jordan. He struck them with his coat. His mantle rolled up. And they stopped up and he crossed over. And then the waters flowed again. In all of these cases, there were other means. [00:31:10] But Jesus distinguishes himself in all of the water and wind and storm miracles. [00:31:16] By speaking directly to the elements of creation and their obeying his voice. [00:31:25] The disciples hear this, see this, and they ask rightly, what kind of man is this? [00:31:34] Surely He's a man. [00:31:37] He falls asleep. When he gets tired, he needs to take a nap. [00:31:43] He grows weary. He's a man. But what kind of man can speak? And the creation obeys his voice. You see, they still haven't grasped what the centurion by faith grasped. Jesus is no mere man. He is the Son of God incarnate in the flesh. [00:32:05] Had they studied their Old Testaments, had they pondered them with the eyes of faith, they would have recognized this voice. Because it was the same voice that spoke at creation. [00:32:19] The waters were separated from the earth when God spoke. He commanded the waters to be gathered up in the seas and above the heavens and below the crust of the earth. And the waters obeyed his voice. [00:32:34] God again commanded the storm. And as we saw in the Psalms, he sits enthroned above the storm. [00:32:40] The wind and the waves obey God's voice and his alone. [00:32:48] When he speaks, a storm comes up. It threatens to sink Jonah's ship. [00:32:56] They plead with God. They cast Jonah into the waters. And everything's calm and peaceful. [00:33:03] The united testimony of the whole Bible that these disciples had. Was that the voice that controls the wind and the waves is the voice of God himself. [00:33:15] Only God Almighty can command wind and waves. [00:33:19] Jesus is almighty God. [00:33:25] Consider the storm that he calms. [00:33:28] The storms he calms are not just a storm on a small lake like Galilee, but the mighty flood of Noah. It came because God commanded it. And it stopped. And it receded at his command. [00:33:46] The storms not just surrounding the disciples, but storms of judgment. In fact, much of the language of storms, waves, seas in the Bible is all associated with judgment. [00:34:03] The storms of this life, the things we've talked about mostly so far. The problems we have, illnesses, other problems, interpersonal relationships, all these issues. These storms are uncertain. [00:34:17] We don't know if we'll go through them, if we'll get sick or not, if we'll have a problem or not. When they come. We don't know if they'll be short or long. There's a great deal of uncertainty with the storms of this life. [00:34:30] There is One storm, however, one storm that is certain. [00:34:37] We know this storm will come. [00:34:40] It will come when Jesus comes riding on the clouds, writing on the storm clouds of God's judgment. [00:34:54] It's the storm of God's wrath on. On the judgment day pictured in the flood, pictured in the Red Sea crossing and the destroying of God's enemies and Pharaoh's army pictured here on the Sea of Galilee. And very clearly Jesus says through his angels that one day he's going to come again riding on those storm clouds in judgment. [00:35:18] That storm of God's judgment and wrath is certain and sure to come to every sinner. [00:35:28] But consider the one who spoke and the wind and the waves obeyed him. [00:35:36] We call upon him for salvation from the storm of God's final judgment and wrath. He's the one we plead to. [00:35:45] And what has his voice said about your and my final judgment? [00:35:51] As he hung on the cross, he said, it is finished. God's wrath is satisfied for my people. As we heard this morning, he bore all of it. The voice that calmed the wind in the waves has calmed the storm of the final judgment for his people. [00:36:12] As certain as that storm is so certain it that you will pass through it untouched, calm and at peace. [00:36:22] One day, if you belong to Jesus, you will hear this same voice. It will call you forth from the grave. When he comes, all of his people will be brought back to life and be drawn up with him in the air. [00:36:41] And we will pass through that judgment unharmed. [00:36:46] That's all certain and sure. [00:36:49] Now, as you look at the storms that lie ahead of you in this life, some of them you're going through right now, some of them may be on the horizon. Some of them you will have no clue are coming and they're going to hit you and you won't know what happened. [00:37:03] But if Jesus voice can deliver you from the storm of final judgment, he will deliver you from all of the storms of this life. Let's go to him in prayer, shall we? [00:37:16] Lord Jesus, our great king, what a marvel it is that we can come before your throne. [00:37:25] And we can come without fear that you love us. You love us and care for us. You may chide us gently because of the littleness of our faith, because of how firmly our eyes are fixed on the troubles of this life and not on you. But yet you receive us and you love us. We ask that in your great compassion and mercy you would open our eyes, the eyes of faith to see behold you in all your glory, in all your mercy and kindness and love toward us, and help us to draw near to you and find peace through all of the trials of this life, knowing that you have secured our salvation. [00:38:09] And we thank you, too, that like the disciples, you are ever present, that whatever arises, we only have to turn to you. And you are there with us. You hear us, and we are assured of your presence. For we have your promise that you will never leave us nor forsake us. Hear us, we ask Amen.