Authority over Nature

Heat. Heat. Good morning, Cross Church Phoenix. How are you? >> Good, good. Welcome in. I'm Pastor DJ. I'm the pastor here at Cross Church Phoenix. If I haven't met you before, welcome. Uh, come bug me afterwards. Come. It doesn't bug bother me, bug me at all. Come find me and talk to me, right? Um, but I'd love to meet you and get to know you more. Um, and at this time, I invite you to open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 8. Matthew chapter 8 beginning at verse 23. And as you turn there, I want to echo the announcement uh a reminder for our VBS volunteers meeting today after this service. Uh we'll be over in the kids wing and I hope you'll join us because we've got a lot of great wonderful things planned and we're going to need a lot of help to get it done. Uh so we have uh VBS volunteers meeting after service. We've also officially launched our let's go journey. Um and I've received some inquiries as to where we're at on that and we'll be announcing that next week because there's commitment cards still coming in. And so there's still time. Uh and I encourage you to turn one in if you still if you haven't yet, you are encouraged to because this is uh really a pivotal time in the life of the crossurch collective. As you know, we are Cross Church Phoenix. We also have Cross Church Surprise Elmarrage Cornville and then we're planting two churches at Glacia de la Cruz will be is having a preview their last preview service tonight and then they launch in two weeks week to week services. So please keep them in prayer. And then we also have Cross Church Mayor that is coming uh in August and they're up there renovating and uh doing some things uh up there as well. And we believe that God has positioned Cross Church um just in a in a spot where we can um help keep gospel lights on where they're going out. And so I pray that you'll join us in that. You can find commitment cards in the foyer. Uh or there's an online card, too. Um, if you don't like the handwritten version, there's one online as well. But I want to echo and reiterate the goal here is a 100% engagement by everyone who calls Cross Church home. Um, that is the barometer for success. Not the amount that we announce next week, but the amount of people uh here at Phoenix engaged in biblical stewardship. My prayer is simple, right? It is for obedience to God's call on our lives to be joyful givers. Um well, this morning we start a new series called the miracles of Jesus. We'll be spending the next eight weeks covering miracles, select miracles of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. And then after that, we'll be doing uh nine weeks in the parables. And that will take us well into the summer. So to kind of give you a a wide angle view, but for now the miracles of Jesus and it's going to be fun. I can't wait. I'm really excited actually to get to get to it. So let's pray. Father, we thank you for this morning. I thank you for your word. Help us, Lord, to uh just calm down whatever is going on in our lives, Lord. That we would just set it all aside and focus on giving glory to God and exalting the Lord Jesus Christ in all that we do. God, I pray that you would give us eyes to see, ears to hear what the spirit has to say to the church here at Cross Church Phoenix. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Well, I want to invite you to stand with us as we read God's word together. If you're unable to, that is totally fine. You can stand with us in spirit. Uh but we're going to stand. We're going to read just a few verses this morning. We'll be in Matthew 8:es 23- 27. And it reads this way in the CSB. As he Jesus got into the boat, his disciples followed him. Suddenly, 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, saying, "Lord, save us. We're going to die." He said to them, "Why are you afraid, you of little faith?" Then he got up and rebuked the winds in the sea, and there was a great calm. The men were amazed and asked, "What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the sea obey him." You can be seated. Thank you. Before we get into this miracle itself, I want to give you a little bit of the prophetic backdrop of Matthew. and he quotes a few Old Testament prophets, of course, but one of the lingering threads is the prophet Isaiah. And this is important because Matthew assumes you know your Old Testament. Not that you've mastered it, but that you can see Christ fulfilling Old Testament prophecy. There's many miracles before this passage, before verse 23 comes. If you know kind of the big picture of Matthew, we have the Christmas story in the first few chapters. And then in chapter four, the temptation of Christ in the desert with Satan. And then in chapters 5-7, we have the sermon on the mount. Uh Jesus is preaching and teaching uh to everyone there. And then we come to chapter 8. And if you look up at the beginning of chapter 8, miracles start happening. He heals a man with leprosy. He heals a centurion's paralyzed servant and then he heals Peter's mother-in-law who is sick with a fever. And if you look at verse 16, many, it says, were brought to him who were demonpossessed and he drove them out and healed all who were sick. So, we know specifically of three miracles before we even get to verse 23. But it says that many demons were cast out and he healed many people. So there's been miracles, a lot happening by the time we even get to verse 23. Now, what does Matthew say is the point of these miracles? The answer is in verse 17 of Matthew chapter 8. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah. He took our illnesses and bore our diseases. Now, he's quoting Isaiah. That's your freebie. Do you remember where in Isaiah? And that comes from the famous Isaiah 53, the suffering servant prophecy. And in verse 4 of Isaiah 53, it says, "Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him strick and smitten by God and afflicted." Matthew is linking Jesus miracles with the fact that he is the promised one to come, the suffering servant, the Messiah, the one. Matthew is saying he is the suffering servant who has come not just to do miracles, but he is the one who is to come to save his people from their sins. What are the next few verses say in Isaiah 53? Well, in verse 5, it says, "But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid upon him the iniquity of us all. So for Matthew, the miracles are not detached from the atonement. The atonement being his sacrificial death on the cross for our sins. These are signs pointing to the fact that Jesus is the suffering servant of Isaiah prophesied and whose ultimate mission is to save his people from their sin. In Matthew 11, uh John the Baptist is in prison and he's hearing about what's going on. All these miracles are happening. He's hearing about what Jesus is doing. So he sends his disciples to Jesus with a message really a question. Are you the one who is to come or should we look for another? Jesus replies in Matthew 11 beginning at verse 4. He says it says and Jesus answered them go and tell John what you hear and see. The blind receive their sight and the lame walk. Lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear and the dead are raised up and the poor have good news preached to them. What I want you to see is Jesus' answer deliberately echoes Isaiah 35 where those things what we just read are evidence of the glory of the Lord, the majesty of God and that he is coming to save from sin. Jesus himself says the point of the miraculous is to show the glory of God that he is God in the flesh and that he's coming to save us from our sin, sickness, ailments, sin, death are a result of the fall in Genesis chapter 3. It's how uh the fall is is visible to us. Had there been no sin in the world, there would be not only no death, but no sickness, no flu, no COVID, right? No commercials for new medications that cure such and such with the possible side effect of dying, right? Those things are a result of sin in the world. And what Matthew is not saying is, hey, Jesus healed these people. So every believer is guaranteed healing from their ailment as soon as they become a Christian is not what he's saying. He may miraculously heal you. Absolutely he might. He may. But that is secondary to him saving you from sin. Saving us from sin. Matthew's point is that because Jesus has power over the consequences of sin like disease, sickness, and death, that points to his ultimate authority and power to defeat sin and death and to forgive you and I of our sins. He's saying you could trust him with your life. That's what the miracles say or communicating. Now, I know that's a rather long introduction, but I want you to understand the point of miracles was never miracles in and of themselves. Though they are amazing. The point was always bigger to show Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the suffering servant come to save us from sin. And here in our text, we'll see Jesus authority extends to even nature itself, his authority over creation. And so I want to break this up into two sections. And there's uh handouts in the back if you want one. If not, it'll be on the screen. But um two sections, fearing the created versus fearing the creator. Fearing the created. So that's our first main heading. The effects of fearing the created. The effects of fearing the created. Number one, we forget what God said. We forget what God said. This passage verses 23- 27 is sandwiched between the words going to the other side. And I want you to see this. Look back at verse 18. It says, "When Jesus saw the large crowd around him, he gave the order." Isn't that great? He gave the order to go to the other side of the sea. Now look at verse 28, the very next verse after our passage. When he had come to the other side, Matthew is pointing something out on purpose. Right? There's no waste of ink in scripture. It all serves a purpose. Matthew is specifically pointing out that Jesus said that they're going to the other side and they came to the other side despite the violent storm in between. If Jesus gave orders to go to the other side, you're going to the other side. That's the point. Jesus, it says, gave orders to go to the other side. Now, this is early uh in Jesus ministry. And yes, the disciples are still trying to figure everything out. Um even after Christ is risen, they don't have it all figured out. You know, neither do we. But let's not miss the lesson that Matthew is teaching. If Jesus says we're going to the other side, you're going to the other side. that's happening, which is why he's asleep in the middle of a violent storm. It's easy to armchair quarterback the disciples now and say that they had nothing to worry about, but it's technically true. It's true. They have nothing to worry about. Now, I'm not saying we'd be any better. In fact, we'd probably react the same or worse if we were in their position facing danger. But I submit to you that if the disciples were keen listeners, they'd recall, but the Lord said, "I'm going to the other side. I may not know how. I may not know when. The storm is vicious. I don't know how we're going to get to the other side, but the Lord said we were." And I can trust that. I can trust that. And this leads me to our second point. When we fear the created uh we are stressed, anxious and worried for no reason. Stressed, anxious, worried for no reason. Stress, anxiety, and worry have control of a lot of people today. It really does. And the Bible does speak to this, right? The disciples are worried out of their mind, right? And these are seasoned, some of them seasoned fishermen. And it's not like this is the first storm they've ever experienced and like what's happening? No, they know what's up and it's violent and they're scared. They're worried out of their minds and humanly speaking, we can understand why, but they're not contemplating what Jesus had said previously. And it's not like he said, "Let's go to the other side." And then like 6 months later, they'd actually do it. This is within minutes, right? Maybe hours if you want to, but I don't know. give it that. But it's not like he said, "Let's go to the other side, but we're going to camp here for 3 months and then go to the other side." It's, "Let's go to the other side." And they got in the boat. Went to the other side. What did he just say? But they're not thinking about that. They're not contemplating what he just said. They are freaked out. They're not contemplating his command that they'll go to the other side. They're worried about dying in the storm. Now, Mark draws this out even more in his gospel. He says this in Mark 4:38. But he was in the stern asleep on the cushion. Jesus even got himself a pillow. Right? It's great. And they, the disciples, woke him up and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" Mark is a little more emphatic. He's saying, "Teacher," the disciples to Jesus, "don't you care that we're going to die?" And you contrast that with Jesus, right? Fast asleep. He's not worried, stressed, or anxious. Complete trust in the father, right? And oh, how this applies to our lives today. We have promise after promise in the New Testament. We may not see how or when that promise will come, but by golly, we can trust it because God said it. For example, are you anxious and want the peace of God? Say, "Yes, sign me up." Right? Are you stressed out, anxious, worried? Do you want the peace of God? Philippians chapter 4 is about experiencing the peace of God. We'll reread it and apply it to our lives or will we forget about it? Paul says, "Don't be anxious." Easy for you to say, Paul, you don't know what it's like to be in 21st century America, bro. Do you really want to like, "We don't know what it's like to be in first century apostle getting beaten, whipped, shipwrecked." read 1 Corinthians 11. For all all he went through, beat up and imprisoned within an inch of his life. That's the guy writing in prison saying, "Don't be anxious about anything." That guy, "Don't be anxious for anything." Well, that's easier said than done. I understand that. But he gives us more than that. He says, "Don't be anxious. Pray to God." Right? In everything give thank to God and let the peace of God guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. >> Amen. >> Don't be anxious for anything, but in everything with prayer and supplication, let your requests be made known to God. And what the peace of God will guard guard? Yes. Guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. You're saying that prayer, turning to him in prayer, making supplication, being thankful for everything will help, will guard me against anxiety. Yes. >> Yes, it will. Your heart and your mind. Paul doubles down. Um he doesn't stop there. He tells you what to focus on, right? What to think about. Focus on what is true, what is honorable, what is just, what is pure, what is lovely, what is commendable. Focus on these things and what the God of peace, he repeats himself, the God of peace will be with you. You mean if I focus on what is true and I focus my mind on what's honorable, I focus on things that are just and pure. I focus on what's lovely, commendable. And if he says, "If there's any excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, think on these things and the God of peace will be with you." You mean that is the antidote for anxiety? Yes. Biblically, it is. The God of peace will be with you. It is a battle. Yes. But Philippians 4 is a recipe for dealing with stress and anxiety. And it's about focusing on God and the truth that comes from his word. That's freedom from anxiety. Thank you, Jesus. >> Or there's the promise that he be he who began a good work in you will complete it. You might not see how. You might not know how, but you could take it to the bank that God will complete his good work in you. >> You might be like, "But you don't understand my situation, DJ. You're right." I probably don't. I may not be like, "But I'm living paycheck to paycheck. I can't survive. I'm stressed out and anxious beyond." Okay. And go to the Lord. Trust in God. Easy for you to say, "Pastor, I'm not the one saying it." Actually, it's God's word saying it. >> Anxiety is real, but so is God and so are his promises. We really going to say that anxiety is more real than God in his promises. Yet we let that control our lives instead of him. Don't let it control you. Don't let it rule over you. Put it in its place. Now, I'm not being hard against those who experience anxiety. I am being hard against anxiety itself. We give it way too much power. We really do. We do. Don't let it. Don't let it. Fear the creator, not the created. I want to say what Jesus said about anxiety. Matthew 6 27. So he just got done saying this in his sermon on the mount. And he says this about anxiety. He says, "And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?" Man, come on, Jesus. Like, dude, bro, come on. Right? Like, what is he saying? What is his point? He's saying anxiety ain't your friend. Anxiety don't care about you. It ain't helping you. And it can't add a single hour or a single span to your life. So, don't let it rule over you. Right? The disciples have this much zero control over the storm that they're experiencing. Zero. It's happening. God's allowing it. All right. But what they do have control over is their response to it. They could have recalled what Jesus said. We're going over there. Just think about this with me for one minute. I don't want to overstep, but I want you to think about it. Could could any of the disciples walked in, saw Jesus sleeping, and said, "You know what? I think I'm going to take a nap, too." Could they have? They still would have made it to the other side because Jesus said, "We're going to the other side." Could they have taken a lesson from Jesus and said, "You know what? I guess I'll take a nap too in this storm. Would that have kept them from arriving at the other side?" Of course not. They would have made it. Now, we know that that didn't happen, but I submit to you that they could have because that wasn't going to change the outcome of arrival on the other side. Their panic didn't change it. And if they would have taken a nap right right with Jesus, they're still gonna arrive. What good did their panic do? None. Right. That's why he points them out. He says, "Oh, you of little faith." Interesting, right? He he he goes straight to them. Not you're right. That's a crazy storm. I'm so sorry. I was sleeping. He says, "What is it? You of little faith." What is it? The storm is secondary. Your faith is primary. >> Amen. >> And we can do the same. We can trust Christ. Hold on to his words. When fear and anxiety come, don't fear the created. Fear the creator. And so that's our second main point. The blessings of fearing the creator. When we fear the creator, number one, we have no reason to fear anything or anyone else. We have no reason to fear anything or anyone else. And second, I want to give you the second one quickly. When we fear the creator, our fear of God keeps our fear in its rightful place. Keeps it in its rightful place. Now Mark tells us in his gospel that when Jesus rebuked the storm and there was calm, the disciples went from fearing the storm to fearing Jesus. Everything switched to who is this? So Mark says in Mark 44 4:41 he says and they were filled with great mark it great fear and said to one another who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey him. They go from fearing the winds and the sea to great fear of Jesus. Their fear of Jesus was greater than their fear of the storm that they just that he just calmed. If you remember, maybe you grew up in church, I don't know, Sunday school story of Jonah. Yeah. The the guy who was swallowed by the fish. Yes. But there's more to the story, right? The whole first chapter of Jonah is about fearing Yahweh above everything else. That's the point of Jonah chapter 1. If we were preaching Jonah 1, it would be fear God. Fear the Lord above everything else. Because that is the point. That's the whole point of Jonah 1. In Jonah 1, the sailor's fear grows. And that's what is being communicated. Everyone fears God but Jonah. That's kind of the point. And then God gets Jonah's attention. Um, but the sailors, in fact, in Hebrew and and it comes out in the original language better. Um, but in Hebrew, the sailors are actually the salty ones. We use sailors cuz that's what they are. They're professional sailors, but they would be salty because they spend all their time on the sea. It is the salty ones. And these are seasoned sailors. And there's a great storm. And it says, "And they were afraid." good oldfashioned afraid of the storm. And they panic and they come to Jonah who is what? Asleep. And he's like, "Yeah, I I fear God. I fear Yahweh. I'm a I'm a prophet. I'm a servant of Yahweh. Um if you throw me overboard, you know, everything will be fine." And eventually they do, and there is a great calm on the sea. And what does God's word have to say about that? in in Jonah 1, their regular old fear of the storm. It went from that to it says exceedingly great fear of Yahweh the Lord when the storm was calmed. It is emphatic for a reason. Sailors fear the storm. We're scared we might die. The storm is calmed after they throw Jonah overboard. They are exceedingly greatly fearing Yahweh at the end of Jonah chapter 1. And that's the point, fearing Yahweh above everything. And you can see kind of hints of Jonah 1 in our text here. And Matthew, I believe, is drawing some parallels to that. That Yahweh controls the sea is obvious in the Old Testament. I could just give you one psalm, Psalm 89:9. It says, "You rule the raging of the sea. When its waves rise, you still them." And there's other psalms that speak to that. But the point is the sea, that Jesus is God who controls the sea. Now, the difference between Jonah and these disciples here in Matthew 8 is that Jonah was not not where he was supposed to be. But think about it. Think with me. The disciples are. They sure are. I was talking with someone this week who who brought this out and I thought it was great. Think about it with me. The disciples are exactly where they should be. Where are they? In a boat with Jesus going to the other side. They are in a boat with Jesus on the lake following where he said they're going to go. They are exactly where they should be, traveling where he leads. And yet a storm comes and a violent storm at that, right? Following Christ does not mean immunity from storms. It does not. Maybe you'd say, "Man, I'm following Jesus. I'm trying hard to do what he says, to live how he tells me to. And yet, storm after storm, trial after trial. What we learn here is that following Christ doesn't mean no storm. It means what? Trusting him in it. >> Amen. >> And trusting in his words before and after it. Following Jesus doesn't mean rainbows and unicorns all the time. There are great times. Don't get me wrong. The joy of following Christ is immense and great. But it doesn't mean that it will be that all the time. You can be right where God wants you to be and yet in a violent storm. The question isn't if you'll experience a storm of life following Jesus. It's what are you going to do when you experience storms of life following Jesus? The trials we experience tempt us to fear the created. Don't do it. Continue to walk with the Lord. Fear the creator. I want to end with the words of Jesus himself. Jesus said this in Matthew chapter 10. And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Strong words. Yeah. Not mine. Those are Jesus's. What's he saying? Even if your life is threatened physically, literally, don't fear anyone who can only harm you physically, cuz that's just one piece. Fear him who can destroy both your body and your soul in hell. Very serious and sobering words from the Lord, from Christ. He's talking about hell and people going there who do not fear him. Your eternal state is far more important than any present storm. It really is. We can lose sight of eternity in our present circumstances. And the challenge is will we continue to fear God and to walk with God, to revere him, to love him, to worship him no matter what happens in our lives. Matthew closes with the question we all must answer. What kind of man is this? Who is this? And we've talked about this before in previous sermons, right? Who is Jesus? Not who is he to you? Like who do you think he is? And what what have you know have you conjured up Jesus in your mind and you just make him up as you go? Not that not the version of Jesus that's not biblical. Who is Jesus? Right? I was going to say period but then that would be like not accurate, right? But simply who is he? And CS Lewis put it this way. Maybe you've heard this before. This is not original to me. from CS Lewis. He said Jesus is either liar, lunatic, or lord. Those are the only three options you have. No one refuts the existence of Jesus Christ as a as a man walking the earth. No one. You have to kind of be like hidden under a rock to think that he didn't even exist. No one refutes that. Atheists are like, "Yeah, Jesus existed. He's like a Gandhi, you know." So, either he knows what he's doing and he's a liar. That's deception. That would be awful. Or he's a lunatic, meaning the he makes vast claims and he just doesn't know what he's doing. He's just out of his mind crazy. That would make him a lunatic. Okay? Or he's Lord. Everything he said is true. And this is true. He has all authority over sin, death, hell, nature, everything. Spoiler alert, he's Lord. >> Okay? Can I just answer that for you? It's whether or not you will submit to him. And we've talked about this previously. We don't make him Lord like I'll let you be Lord now or I'll let you be Lord next week when I decide to turn my life over to you. No, no, no, no. He is Lord. The question is, will you submit to him as Lord? Because he's Lord regardless. He's Lord of heaven and earth whether you agree with it or not. >> Yes. It's just whether or not you will submit to him and trust in him with your life. Matthew intentionally closes this with the question, "What kind of man is this?" And the answer to that question will come from an unlikely source next week. And I'll give you a hint. It's in the next few verses. We'll touch on this next week. But demons will say, "What are you here to do, son of God?" Matthew's doing this intentionally. What kind of man is this? He's the son of God. >> And comes from an unlikely source. Yes. Intentional in his writings to point out that's the answer. You want the answer to verse 27? You look at verse 29. That's the answer. He is the son of God, not created, the eternal son of God. I want to invite the worship team back up. But if you're here this morning, you say, "I don't know Jesus Christ as as my personal Lord and Savior." Maybe you're wrestling with it. Praise God. But if you say, "I don't know him. I know about him." There's a big difference in knowing about Jesus and knowing Jesus, right, intimately. But I would invite you, you can come find me after service and we'll talk. I'd love to chat with you about the gospel and about Christ. And if you're here today, you say, "I do know the Lord. I've been walking with him for a while, but things are just upside down in my life right now. I'm really going through it, Pastor DJ. And I don't I'm not even going to pretend to know what you're going through. I do know that a lot of us here, a lot of us are just going through it right now. But I would submit to you that you can rest in Christ regardless. And yes, we're called to work hard and to do to be good stewards and to to live to support our families. All of that, yes and amen. But in the end, you can trust that God is saying in his word that the peace of God will guard your hearts and minds if you'll take it to him. That if you focus on these things, the God of peace will be with you. And I just gave a selection, right? There's other promises of God. He began a good work in you. He'll complete it. Trust in that. Everything. Romans 8:28, all things work together for the good to those who love God according to his purpose. Notice his purpose, not yours. Um his. But you can trust in that somehow someway, Lord, you're using this for good. I don't have the slightest clue how, but I do love you. That promise is for those who love God, right? to those who love him according to his purpose. I love you, God. I don't know what's going on, but I could trust you that it will work together for good, for your glory and my good, right? Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this morning. I thank you for your word. Help us, God, to um not just be hearers of the word, but doers also. God, I pray that you would help us to take seriously what you say. Take seriously your promises. Hold on to your promises more than we hold on to stress or worry or anxiety or any other thing that we're dealing with, Lord. Those are just a few. And we all have these struggles, Lord. And we all have different struggles, God. But I pray that we would hold on to you more than that. Let those things go and flee to Christ. Run to Christ. Take hold of Christ. Like Paul said in Philippians 3, I have been taken hold of Christ, so I pursue him. May that be us also. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Let's stand as we sing our last song.