Authority Over Nature
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· And the promise of this story is that not all of your storms in life will end soon. The Bible does not guarantee our storms will go away. The Bible does not guarantee if you're walking through a battle of cancer or sickness that it'll just be wiped away and gone. The Bible does not guarantee that, but God will be with you. The Bible doesn't guarantee that the struggle in your marriage will end this week or even this year. It may keep going. Instead, the promise is that you will never be alone. that God himself in the person of Jesus Christ will be with you every step of the way.
· But hey, if you have a Bible, go ahead and open it up to Matthew chapter 8.
· Going to be at Matthew chapter 8. We're going to be starting in verse 23 in just a second. But today, I'm excited. Today, we're starting a brand new series that we're calling miracles. And we're going to spend the next eight weeks walking through eight different miracles of Jesus that are seen in what is called the synoptic gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Those gospels kind of have a lot of crossing paths to a lot of the same stories and give more details on them.
· And there's this guy John, if you've read the Bible, he was a little crazy, but crazy for Jesus. And he he kind of had a diff his gospel like he he focused on some different things. But these Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they overline and they kind of cross paths. And in this series, we're going to study eight miracles that go throughout all those gospels, how they intersect. And and really here's what I'm excited for is as we go through this series, there's going to be this question that just beats at us over and over again.
· This question that we're going to ask and we're going to let the text answer and we're going to see how it just pushes us and propels forward. And we actually find this question straight in our text today in Matthew chapter 8. Look at verse 27 after all this happens. And we're going to see in a second what the events were that led to this. They asked this question. What kind of man is this?
· I love that question. And you look at different translations in the English, they ask you different ways. Some say, "What sort of man is this who can do these things?" Others say, "What kind of person is this?" My favorite is they said, "Who is this?"
· They see Jesus perform this miracle and they're like, "This guy is different.
· There there's something crazy about this guy." and and through these miracles, it is going to reveal and ask the question exactly there and answer it of who is this guy Jesus? And here's the beauty of this series and we're going to see throughout it is the miracles of the gospels. They answer the question very clearly that we are going to wrestle with and see is who is Jesus?
· You think about this based on your life, how you live, the actions you partake, the things you do, you say over and over again who you are. If people ask who is Andrew, some of you think, man, he's that annoying guy that talks on stage and wears grandma's uh cloths on his shirt. This one found this at Marshalls.
· By me, I mean my wife and it looks great. Um I have to wear an undershirt otherwise my whiteness will show through too much. Anyway, um but when I ask the question, who is Andrew? A lot of answers come from I'm a husband uh because I'm happily married to Sarah for 12 years. I believe it's been happy that whole 12 years. I think you can ask her.
· Hopefully she'll agree in that. Right.
· Right. Thank you. I appreciate that. Um you ask who is Andrew. I'm a dad. I'm a dad cuz I have four kids that I'm responsible for spending all the money on and having the leg work until they're 18. When I kick them out and say, "Good luck being an adult. You're on your own.
· Fly." Um some of you are like, "It doesn't work that way." We'll we'll talk later in about 8 years when it starts.
· Anyway, um and it's like who is Andrew?
· I'm a pastor pastor because I preach and I get to shepherd and love people. We say who is Andrew? I'm a Suns fan. And you know that cuz I'm depressed and own way too much Suns merchandise.
· But when you ask yourself, who are you?
· The things you do, the things you spend your time on, they give that answer very clearly. And as we dive into the gospels, we're going to see they answer the question of who is Jesus. And I love this because as we're going to look at these gospels, I actually want to give you a little overview as we dive into this series of who the different gospels say give a different aspect of him.
· When we talk about the synoptics, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, these eyewitness accounts that tell of Jesus, they all give a little different flavor as they tell the same story. In Matthew 16:16, Jesus asks his disciples, "Who do people say I am?" And they say, "A prophet, a miracle worker." They give all these answers. Then he says, "Who do you say I am?" In Simon Peter answers him. He says, "You are the Messiah, the son of the living God."
· You see the book of Matthew, it tells us, it says that Jesus is the fulfilled Messiah. You see, inside the book of Matthew, this was written primarily to a Jewish audience.
· Good Jewish boys and girls who grew up in the synagogue. They went to Saturday school because it wasn't Sunday Sunday school, right? It was Saturday school.
· But they like went through and and they grew up and they they knew their Old Testament. They knew their Bibles. They had known the answers, but they were looking forward to a future hope. And as Matthew writes to them primarily to the Jews, he's saying, "This Messiah, this one that you've been waiting for, he is here and his name is Jesus." You go over to Mark and in Mark 10:45, as Jesus is talking and he's telling them who he is, he says, "For even the son of man did not come to be served, but he to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many."
· The book of Mark, he tells us, he says that Jesus is the suffering servant.
· Mark was written primarily to a Roman audience and Roman citizens who slaved away in the system. But they slaved away in the system, this republic where they got a voice, but it was ruled by a wannabe god man named Caesar who constantly oppressed them. And as they're trying to get ahead day by day and getting their lives pushed back, all of a sudden, Mark presents to him this Jesus who doesn't come to oppress you.
· He is not a wannabe God, but he is God, but he came to suffer and to serve, to die for your sins, so you could know true freedom. The gospels keep painting this picture. We see this fulfilled Messiah, this suffering servant. But then Luke comes in and in Luke 19:10 he says Jesus speaking for the son of man has come to seek and save the lost.
· I love this because we see this portrait, this picture of Jesus that Luke says Jesus is the universal savior that he didn't come just to save the Jews. He didn't come just to save the Romans. But this was written to a primarily Greek and intellectual and lost and pagan audience. He says he came to save all mankind who would confess him as savior and be their lord. And you see all these gospels give this beautiful picture of who Jesus is. When we ask this question, who is Jesus?
· He is the messiah. He is a suffering servant. He is the savior who changes our lives.
· And as we start this journey down these miracles, here's what I love. This journey starts in a boat, in the middle of a sea, in the midst of a storm. As we see that it leads to in verse 27, it says as the end of this that we're going to work to, it says, "The men were amazed and asked, what kind of man is this? Even the winds and the sea obey him." that as we see this miracle that Jesus is going to calm the storm.
· Spoiler alert, we're going to see what it tells us about who Jesus is and how he calls to live our lives. And the very first thing that we're going to see about this is that the miracle of calming the storm shows us that the presence of Jesus doesn't eliminate the problem of storms that come into our life. Check out verse 23 as we dive into this. I love it. It says this story as we start. It says, "As he got into the boat, his disciples followed him."
· Now, some interaction for you. This might wake you up a little bit. And you can, if you're online, you can even put this in in the little chat right there. But using context clues as we read is who got into the boat first?
· Three of you. I'm glad you're reading and awake. All right, let's let's try that again. A little more emphasis on there. Okay, we can all do this. They said Jesus, by the way. Okay, it's the right answer. All right, WHO GOT INTO THE BOAT FIRST?
· JESUS.
· That was a little better. It was still a little lame, but we're working up. I got some stuff for you later. We're going to get more interactive. All right, but Jesus got into the boat first. I grew up in church and and going to children's church and Sunday school and there'd be times just like you where I fell asleep in the middle of the class as you might be now and and then people would call and be like, "Andrew, what's the answer?" And I'm like, "Uh, Jesus."
· They're like, "That's correct, right?
· It's the church answer. Jesus."
· But here's what's funny is Jesus got into the boat first. Why is this so important? is because Jesus got in and then the disciples followed him. And what we need to hear is the disciples were not on some rogue mission. They weren't say like, "Hey, we're going to go slay a giant fish and cut it up and catch for someone." Instead, Jesus went and they followed. They followed because Jesus got into the boat. They were following the son of God. Now comes the next question.
· Where did following Jesus lead them? straight into a storm. Check out verse 24. It says, "Suddenly," all right, they're following Jesus. They're happy. They're thinking, "This is great." They're like, "Man, we're following Jesus." And then suddenly, a violent storm arose on the sea so that the boat was being swamped by the waves that are taking on water. And listen to this little awesome detail. But Jesus kept sleeping.
· Now, if you know anything about the geography of Israel, this makes a lot of sense that all of a sudden out of nowhere, a storm would start. Uh, the Sea of Galilee sits about 700 ft below seawater and sea level and it's surrounded by hills and very narrow valleys. And often there's cool air that comes through those narrow valleys from the Mediterranean Sea. And when those go through and combine with the still warm water of the Sea of Galilee, all of a sudden that mixture creates a violent storm that erupts over the sea.
· And it's funny cuz I don't know about you, but we know something in Phoenix here about storms coming out of nowhere. Some of you may not know if you've been here soon, we got these things called monsoons. Yeah, we get them maybe once a year, sometimes every like 5 to 10 years. They are awesome. And what I mean by awesome is terrifying and make you want to run into a house and cry and scream. All right. Some of you, all right, uh, none of you, maybe like three of us, uh, were here on August 14th, 1996.
· Show of hands if you lived in Arizona. Literally 10 of us. All right.
· Okay. Um, you're all from somewhere else. I I get it. That's great. But I remember this very clearly. And here's why this monsoon and this storm was such a big deal. is it actually caused $160 million in damage to homes and businesses in the northwest valley of Phoenix. All right, it would have hit surprise at at that time I lived in Peoria and I actually got to experience this. It was so crazy that Deer Valley, it was a record high is they had gusts of 115 mph recorded at Deer Valley Airport. That's a category 3 hurricane.
· All right. And you like, I moved from Oklahoma cuz I thought there's no tornadoes here. bring our monsoons, man.
· It's fun stuff. But I remember this one so vividly because I was actually, you know how old I was in 1996?
· Five. All right. Some of that will depress you. Uh but you can just do some math and think about that one a little bit more. But as a 5-year-old, I I was at my church I grew up at 83rd in Cactus. And I think we picked up our brother my brothers on a Wednesday night um from Aana. And I just sat in there as we're looking through these glass doors and there's like trees just going down the street and water rushing away. And what's crazy is a storm came out of nowhere.
· And the disciples, they get on this boat and all of a sudden a violent and a sudden and a terrifying storm just breaks out. This wasn't a little drizzle. This was a shaking. The kind of storm that makes experienced fishermen, guys who grew up on the lake, fear for their lives. And think about the guys who are here. These are disciples of Jesus. Peter, Andrew, James, and John before they started following Jesus.
· They were commercial fishermen. They had been on this water thousands of times.
· And if they were panicking, this means it wasn't a normal day on the lake. You know, when you're flying a plane, you know when is the proper time to be scared when you hit turbulence?
· If you look at the flight attendant and they're calm and they're saying, "Hey, we're suspending drink service." and then they go and they strap in and start reading like their Kindle or doing their nails. You're like, "Okay, everything's fine." If you look over and they're gripping things tight and they look terrified but are trying to hold it down back, that means you're going to die because they are afraid.
· And here in the boat, the the disciples who weren't fishermen looked at the fisherman guys and like they're freaking out. We should be freaking out. We're going to die. But here's the part that I don't want you to miss. Here's my favorite part about it. What was Jesus doing? He was sleeping. Oh, you guys were about to interact. I didn't even ask that question, but you're like, he was I'm ready. He was sleeping. The boat's taking water. It's getting swamped. The waves are crashing over the sides. The disciples, they're bailing.
· They're they're bailing water. They're freaking out. And I love it. He's sleeping. Mark's gospel actually gives a little detail that he was sleeping on a cushion in the stern. I love that little detail. He had a nice pillow and he was on the stern just like taking a nap. And this detail tells us something about who Jesus is. One, it shows us that Jesus was indeed fully human. When he was here, he was fully human and fully God.
· That Jesus took naps. Yesterday I was here with first soccer for about four and a half hours as three of my kids played soccer games. And I had a break in between trying not to die of the sun because you see me, I'm pasty. Um, but in there I went home after that and I I'm not a nap person, but I took a nap cuz I was exhausted. I was tired of watching soccer games in the sun. I did a lot of work, but I was tired and I took a nap. And then Jesus take he took naps cuz he was fully man.
· But here in the middle of this life-threatening storm, his humanity is on display. But what I love is it also tells us something about his trust in God the Father. That you think Jesus knew there was probably a storm coming? I mean, he was fully God. I think when he walked in that boat, he knew a storm was going to come. I think when he laid his head down to take a nap, he knew the storm was coming, but he just slept through the storm cuz he's like, "Hey guys, don't worry about it. I I know the guy upstairs um like me and him, we got this cool link.
· Like we are actually one and three persons is crazy. He'll blow your mind." But he's like, he's not scared because he knew that God was supreme and God was sovereign. And here's the reality I think we need to hear as the church is that following Jesus does not mean that you will never face a storm.
· Some of you may be walked in here today and maybe everything looks great on the outside, but inside your heart is in a storm. Maybe your marriage is struggling. Maybe your health is not where you want it to be and you're getting bad news after bad news. Maybe your kid is making choices that you keep on praying, God, let him stop being an idiot or her and they just keep making those choices and it's driving you crazy. Maybe your finances are underwater. No pun intended there, right? But maybe you're carrying anxiety that you can't even name.
· And I think for some of us, there's this subtle lie we believe that like, man, if I follow Jesus, if I go to church, if I start reading my Bible, if I start praying, then life's going to be like skipping through daisies, it's going to be easier. It's going to be better. It's going to be nice. I heard a nice preacher with a jet on the TV screen and a nice suit says that if I follow Jesus, life will get better. And then you're like, I follow Jesus and my life seems like it's worse.
· And here's the deal. Just because we're with Jesus and following Jesus does not mean the storms of life will not come. But here is the beauty in this is when the storm comes. Our God is still there. The disciples were in the will of God. They were with Jesus. It didn't prevent the storm, but it did redeem it.
· In 1915, the explorer Ernest Shackleton, which I just want to say, one of the coolest names you'll ever hear. All right, Ernest Shackleton. I read this story and I thought about changing my name on the spot. Um, if only my last name could be Shackleton. I would go by Pastor Shackleton. Um, because it would sound cooler than Andrew. But anyway, Ernest Shackleton, his crew, they set out for Antarctica with their ship, the Endurance.
· And as they're going through and exploring Antarctica, they became trapped and trapped by this ice that kept expanding so much that it literally crushed their ship and they had to get out of the ship. And they were stranded on ice flows in in the middle of the most hostile ocean on Earth. And yet every account and memoir from the crew, which means they survived and did not die, they all said the same thing. They said that Shackleton's presence kept them alive. And here's the deal.
· It didn't keep him alive because he could control the ice. He couldn't. Not because he could stop the cold. He couldn't. But because when the leader was in the boat with them, who they described as calm and steady and resolved, it changed everything about how they approached the situation. And the beauty in the story is that the disciples had someone infinitely greater than Shackleton in their boat. They had the one who made the ice. They had the one who made the ocean. and who controls the wind.
· His presence did not eliminate the storm, but his presence meant the storm would not get the final word. You see, the presence of Jesus in your boat does not guarantee calm water, but it does guarantee that you will never be alone and your God is always with you.
· But this leads to our second thing that this miracle shows us about who Jesus is is it shows us that the power of Jesus does not eliminate the powerless nature of men. Check out verse 25.
· I love this verse because I think I can relate with this verse because this would be me. It's saying as they're getting swamped with water as Jesus is keep on sleeping. In verse 25, it says, "So the disciples, they came and they woke him up and saying, and there's exclamations here, Lord, save us." They're yelling at him, "Lord, save us. We're going to die."
· They're like, "Jesus, do something. Stop sleeping. Wake up. Do you see the situation we're in?" And I just love the honesty here because I think sometimes that's what our prayers look like. Not the proper theology, not the eloquence.
· You think they were talking to God and they're yelling at him to save him. But in that desperation, in that like there's knowing like we cannot control what is happening around us, they ran to him. And you know what that tells me is the storm did exactly what it was supposed to. It brought them to the very end of themselves into the very feet of Jesus. Think about this again. These were professional fishermen. They knew how to handle a boat.
· They knew how to guide a boat in the middle of a storm. But this storm was bigger than their skill set. It was bigger than their experience. It was bigger than their ability to control. And when they ran out of their own resources, they turned to Jesus.
· I've learned over the years that people often come to Jesus the same way the disciples did here. As we try to do life on our own, we try to do it within our own strength, within our own comfort, within our own bounds. But it's usually when we come to the end of ourselves that we find like, "Oh, maybe I should actually reach out to this God to see if there's something better." All of a sudden, the marriage counseling isn't working like I thought it would. All of a sudden, I got this new promotion and I still feel this deep and dark void in my heart that has not gone away.
· All of a sudden, my kids I' I've tried every parenting hack on TikTok and they're worse than they were before I tried those things. And we try to do things and it doesn't get better. When we come to the end of ourselves is when we often run to the feet of Jesus.
· And here's honestly a warning I think with this in us here especially as Christians in America is we think we are doing better than we are because we are comfortable because our lives we don't have to worry about whether we have enough money in the bank account half the times or we have food on the table and we're comfortable and we think everything is great but inside the storm of life is wreaking havoc destroying us and we need to recognize it and come to the feet of Christ and here's the beauty in this is God is gracious enough to use those storms to reveal who he is.
· Look at verse 26 as they say, "Lord, save us. We're going to die." After they're probably shaking him to wake him up, he said to them, this is Jesus responding to his disciples, "Why are you afraid, you of little faith?" He He kind of like talks to them almost like a father to a child.
· He's like, "Why are you so scared? Like, we got this. This is fine. Like, there's nothing to be afraid of. Why are you so afraid?
· And then look what happens in the second part of this. Then he got up. He rebuked the winds and the sea. He turned to the elements. He's like, "Settle down now."
· Like, "Cut it out. That's enough. We made our point." And what happens?
· And then there was a great calm.
· I think there's a few things we need to see. And I don't want us to rush past this because I think two things happen in this verse that are absolutely stunning. First, Jesus rebukes the disciples, but what does he rebuke them for? He doesn't rebuke them for coming to him. They were right to come to him, but he rebukes them for being afraid when they come to him. And he says this, "You of little faith." He didn't say, "You have no faith." They had faith.
· They came to Jesus because they thought he could do something, but they had little faith because they thought if Jesus didn't act right, then he would let them die. And he's saying, "Hey, your faith isn't the problem. You have a little bit of faith." And the Bible says our faith is great. That a faith is small of a mustard seed can change our lives. When we have faith in God, it changes everything. But the power was not in how much faith they had. The power was in the object of their faith.
· That they believed in the God of the universe. And our faith is strong only when the object of our faith is strong. And here's the deal. The object of their faith was not a sleeping man in a boat who couldn't do anything. Instead, the object of their faith and our faith today is the sovereign creator of everything.
· He rebukes them for not believing enough that they could trust him. But that leads to the second thing is then Jesus then rebukes the storm. Man, this is such an awesome moment. Mark's gospel actually tells us what Jesus said in that rebuke. In Mark's gospel, it says he stood up and it says with exclamation parts, so he's probably loud. says, "Silence, be still."
· Now, this summer when it's 120, I'm going to just start coming out of my door when it's 120°, BE LIKE, "STOP IT.
· Get cooler."
· But I don't think it's going to work. I'll try it for you guys, though. All right. Uh, Bible tells us if you have faith, you know, you can that mountain can be thrown into the sea. So, maybe if I have faith, all of a sudden, it can come from 120 to 85. I'll have faith. Um, it just might not work.
· But Jesus, most baller moment ever, yells at winds and waves in a hurricane and says, "Knock it off." And it does. It doesn't even take time.
· It's like, "Oh." And then in the next 10 minutes, it passed by. It's just like the waves were like, "Oh crap." And then like went down. They're like, "God's talking. We better be careful." Like, "We got to figure this out." And here's why this matters so much is I love this because the disciples, they were good Jewish boys. that they knew their Old Testament. And in the Old Testament, there is only one being who has the authority over the wind and the waves.
· Psalm 89:9, listen to these verses. It says, "You being God rule the raging seas. When its waves surge, you steal them." It's saying, "God, you have the ability to will. You have the ability to stir the waves and surge the waves, but also to steal them." And Psalm 107:29 says, "He stilled the storm to a murmur, and the waves of the sea were hushed."
· It's only talking about God is the only one that could do this. In Job 38, God himself says to Job, "Who shut the doors of the sea when it burst from the womb?"
· When they're hearing Jesus say this, they're like, "Hey, only Yahweh can do that. Only God can do that. Only he controls the sea." And Jesus did it with a word. And you see this is the point of the story that Jesus stilled the sea as only God can.
· Now I know many sermons on this passage and I listened to so many great sermons and read so many great commentaries and this is part usually this passage they go straight to so what storms are you facing in your life and Jesus can calm those storms and I would say some of that is probably not great ex Jesus of the text because just because Jesus calmed this storm does not mean he's going to calm every storm. Listen Jesus does walk with you through the storm but that's not the main point here. Instead, the point is much deeper than that. The point is that Jesus is God.
· That the authority that belongs to God alone is the authority that belongs to Jesus. And the promise of this story is that not all of your storms in life will end soon. Here is the hard thing is the Bible does not guarantee our storms will go away. The Bible does not guarantee if you're walking through a battle of cancer or sickness that it'll just be wiped away and gone. The Bible does not guarantee that, but God will be with you. The Bible doesn't guarantee that the struggle in your marriage will end this week or even this year. It may keep going.
· It may keep trying, but it doesn't guarantee that. The promise is not that all of a sudden your idiot son will get it figured out. He might still be dumb for a little while longer as you're praying for him, right? The promise is not that your financial situation will flip upside down or all of a sudden your boss will be less of a jerk. The promise is not any of that.
· Instead, the promise is that you will never be alone. that God himself in the person of Jesus Christ will be with you every step of the way. And here's what it tells us to do is that faith is not a confidence that trials won't come your way. They will come. But faith is confidence that no matter what wind and waves come your way in this world, they may wreck you. They may destroy your life. They may even hurt you to the point of death.
· But the God of the universe will be right there with you in the boat by your side. And for us this morning, as we read this passage and we let it stir in our hearts, here is the miraculous truth that we are drawn to is that Jesus's authority over nature. It proves that he is worthy of our trust.
· Look at verse 27 again. I just love this as we think about he has this great authority and and and he shows why should we trust him? It says, "The men were amazed, saying, "What kind of man is this?" And they describe what kind of man he is that even the winds and the sea obey him.
· What kind of man is this? That's that's the question. And that's the question this entire series is going to answer week after week. But here's what I want to see. What you see in this question that the fear the disciples felt after the miracle was greater than the fear they felt during it. And before it in in Mark's gospel, it says here in Matthew that they were amazed and asked this. In Mark's gospel, it says they were terrified. They just saw the storms come up.
· But what's even scarier is they saw a God man rebuke that storm and they're like, "We are in the presence of the almighty God of the universe." That's a big old deal. And they were terrified.
· They were fearful. They were in reverent awe that the God of the universe would dwell with them. They were starting to realize that this Jesus was something greater. And I love the parallels between this story and the story of Jonah. Jesus in Matthew 12 calls himself the greater Jonah. And Jonah's story in the Old Testament. He's a prophet that ran away from God. And as he ran away, he was caught up in a storm. And he was thrown into the sea. He said, "Hey, throw me into the sea so that the storm would stop." And as he's thrown into the sea, he's gobbled up by a fish. Great story. You should go read it sometime.
· It's awesome. But in Jesus's story that the son of God, he moves towards the mission instead of running away and he was caught in a storm. And what did he do? He commanded the sea to stop. He's like, "That's not the storm I'm facing. I'm I'm gearing up for a bigger storm."
· And then Jesus pressed through in his life. And the storm he would ultimately face was the storm of God's wrath that was reserved for our sins. The storm that led him to dying on the cross and being crucified. And he didn't stop that storm. Instead, he defeated that storm by raising from the grave. And we see Jesus Christ here. This picture we get of him is that he can perform any miracle that our world could ever hope to encounter.
· But he also comes down here to dwell with us, to show us something greater, and to change our lives forever.
· So here's the question is, how does this call us to respond this morning? And I think there are two passing two type of people that are in the room today. First is if you are a believer. I think the response and the challenge and the push and the conviction is you need to ask where am I not trusting God? Maybe you have a storm in your life. Maybe you're trying to do things on your own. You're trying to do things in your willpower, in your plans, in your comfort, and your ability.
· And it looks good for a while, but a storm eventually is going to come and it is going to wreak havoc in your life. And are you going to trust yourself?
· Or are you going to trust the God of the universe who's sleeping in the boat who could steal that storm at any time? And maybe you need to look deep and say, "God, the storms that I'm facing, am I going to trust you through it?"
· But maybe that's not you.
· Maybe you're here cuz you got tricked into coming Easter and then maybe you just showed up the next week cuz you thought that's what everyone did and you're like, "Wow, there's a few more open chairs this week than there was last week." It's kind of right. And maybe you you came on Easter and then you came back again and I'm glad you're here. Maybe you're like, "I don't know if I'm following this Jesus." You're a little skeptical. You don't know if this is the God of the universe that truly can change your life.
· But here's what I want you to hear this morning. that the same Jesus who stood up in a boat and told a hurricane to sit down is the same Jesus that wants to be Lord of your life and change not just your life today but for all of eternity. And when we see this Jesus who has the authority over the wind and the waves, this Jesus that the forces of nature obey his voice.
· Then isn't he worthy of our trust this morning?
· All of it.
· Not just Sunday morning trust for an hour. Not just when things are good, trust. But in all seasons, in all times, and in all storms, do we trust that he is the God of the universe.
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Miracles of Jesus
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· And the promise of this story is that not all of your storms in life will end soon. The Bible does not guarantee our storms will go away. The Bible does not guarantee if you're walking through a battle of cancer or sickness that it'll just be wiped away and gone. The Bible does not guarantee that, but God will be with you. The Bible doesn't guarantee that the struggle in your marriage will end this week or even this year. It may keep going. Instead, the promise is that you will never be alone. that God himself in the person of Jesus Christ will be with you every step of the way.
· But hey, if you have a Bible, go ahead and open it up to Matthew chapter 8.
· Going to be at Matthew chapter 8. We're going to be starting in verse 23 in just a second. But today, I'm excited. Today, we're starting a brand new series that we're calling miracles. And we're going to spend the next eight weeks walking through eight different miracles of Jesus that are seen in what is called the synoptic gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Those gospels kind of have a lot of crossing paths to a lot of the same stories and give more details on them.
· And there's this guy John, if you've read the Bible, he was a little crazy, but crazy for Jesus. And he he kind of had a diff his gospel like he he focused on some different things. But these Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they overline and they kind of cross paths. And in this series, we're going to study eight miracles that go throughout all those gospels, how they intersect. And and really here's what I'm excited for is as we go through this series, there's going to be this question that just beats at us over and over again.
· This question that we're going to ask and we're going to let the text answer and we're going to see how it just pushes us and propels forward. And we actually find this question straight in our text today in Matthew chapter 8. Look at verse 27 after all this happens. And we're going to see in a second what the events were that led to this. They asked this question. What kind of man is this?
· I love that question. And you look at different translations in the English, they ask you different ways. Some say, "What sort of man is this who can do these things?" Others say, "What kind of person is this?" My favorite is they said, "Who is this?"
· They see Jesus perform this miracle and they're like, "This guy is different.
· There there's something crazy about this guy." and and through these miracles, it is going to reveal and ask the question exactly there and answer it of who is this guy Jesus? And here's the beauty of this series and we're going to see throughout it is the miracles of the gospels. They answer the question very clearly that we are going to wrestle with and see is who is Jesus?
· You think about this based on your life, how you live, the actions you partake, the things you do, you say over and over again who you are. If people ask who is Andrew, some of you think, man, he's that annoying guy that talks on stage and wears grandma's uh cloths on his shirt. This one found this at Marshalls.
· By me, I mean my wife and it looks great. Um I have to wear an undershirt otherwise my whiteness will show through too much. Anyway, um but when I ask the question, who is Andrew? A lot of answers come from I'm a husband uh because I'm happily married to Sarah for 12 years. I believe it's been happy that whole 12 years. I think you can ask her.
· Hopefully she'll agree in that. Right.
· Right. Thank you. I appreciate that. Um you ask who is Andrew. I'm a dad. I'm a dad cuz I have four kids that I'm responsible for spending all the money on and having the leg work until they're 18. When I kick them out and say, "Good luck being an adult. You're on your own.
· Fly." Um some of you are like, "It doesn't work that way." We'll we'll talk later in about 8 years when it starts.
· Anyway, um and it's like who is Andrew?
· I'm a pastor pastor because I preach and I get to shepherd and love people. We say who is Andrew? I'm a Suns fan. And you know that cuz I'm depressed and own way too much Suns merchandise.
· But when you ask yourself, who are you?
· The things you do, the things you spend your time on, they give that answer very clearly. And as we dive into the gospels, we're going to see they answer the question of who is Jesus. And I love this because as we're going to look at these gospels, I actually want to give you a little overview as we dive into this series of who the different gospels say give a different aspect of him.
· When we talk about the synoptics, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, these eyewitness accounts that tell of Jesus, they all give a little different flavor as they tell the same story. In Matthew 16:16, Jesus asks his disciples, "Who do people say I am?" And they say, "A prophet, a miracle worker." They give all these answers. Then he says, "Who do you say I am?" In Simon Peter answers him. He says, "You are the Messiah, the son of the living God."
· You see the book of Matthew, it tells us, it says that Jesus is the fulfilled Messiah. You see, inside the book of Matthew, this was written primarily to a Jewish audience.
· Good Jewish boys and girls who grew up in the synagogue. They went to Saturday school because it wasn't Sunday Sunday school, right? It was Saturday school.
· But they like went through and and they grew up and they they knew their Old Testament. They knew their Bibles. They had known the answers, but they were looking forward to a future hope. And as Matthew writes to them primarily to the Jews, he's saying, "This Messiah, this one that you've been waiting for, he is here and his name is Jesus." You go over to Mark and in Mark 10:45, as Jesus is talking and he's telling them who he is, he says, "For even the son of man did not come to be served, but he to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many."
· The book of Mark, he tells us, he says that Jesus is the suffering servant.
· Mark was written primarily to a Roman audience and Roman citizens who slaved away in the system. But they slaved away in the system, this republic where they got a voice, but it was ruled by a wannabe god man named Caesar who constantly oppressed them. And as they're trying to get ahead day by day and getting their lives pushed back, all of a sudden, Mark presents to him this Jesus who doesn't come to oppress you.
· He is not a wannabe God, but he is God, but he came to suffer and to serve, to die for your sins, so you could know true freedom. The gospels keep painting this picture. We see this fulfilled Messiah, this suffering servant. But then Luke comes in and in Luke 19:10 he says Jesus speaking for the son of man has come to seek and save the lost.
· I love this because we see this portrait, this picture of Jesus that Luke says Jesus is the universal savior that he didn't come just to save the Jews. He didn't come just to save the Romans. But this was written to a primarily Greek and intellectual and lost and pagan audience. He says he came to save all mankind who would confess him as savior and be their lord. And you see all these gospels give this beautiful picture of who Jesus is. When we ask this question, who is Jesus?
· He is the messiah. He is a suffering servant. He is the savior who changes our lives.
· And as we start this journey down these miracles, here's what I love. This journey starts in a boat, in the middle of a sea, in the midst of a storm. As we see that it leads to in verse 27, it says as the end of this that we're going to work to, it says, "The men were amazed and asked, what kind of man is this? Even the winds and the sea obey him." that as we see this miracle that Jesus is going to calm the storm.
· Spoiler alert, we're going to see what it tells us about who Jesus is and how he calls to live our lives. And the very first thing that we're going to see about this is that the miracle of calming the storm shows us that the presence of Jesus doesn't eliminate the problem of storms that come into our life. Check out verse 23 as we dive into this. I love it. It says this story as we start. It says, "As he got into the boat, his disciples followed him."
· Now, some interaction for you. This might wake you up a little bit. And you can, if you're online, you can even put this in in the little chat right there. But using context clues as we read is who got into the boat first?
· Three of you. I'm glad you're reading and awake. All right, let's let's try that again. A little more emphasis on there. Okay, we can all do this. They said Jesus, by the way. Okay, it's the right answer. All right, WHO GOT INTO THE BOAT FIRST?
· JESUS.
· That was a little better. It was still a little lame, but we're working up. I got some stuff for you later. We're going to get more interactive. All right, but Jesus got into the boat first. I grew up in church and and going to children's church and Sunday school and there'd be times just like you where I fell asleep in the middle of the class as you might be now and and then people would call and be like, "Andrew, what's the answer?" And I'm like, "Uh, Jesus."
· They're like, "That's correct, right?
· It's the church answer. Jesus."
· But here's what's funny is Jesus got into the boat first. Why is this so important? is because Jesus got in and then the disciples followed him. And what we need to hear is the disciples were not on some rogue mission. They weren't say like, "Hey, we're going to go slay a giant fish and cut it up and catch for someone." Instead, Jesus went and they followed. They followed because Jesus got into the boat. They were following the son of God. Now comes the next question.
· Where did following Jesus lead them? straight into a storm. Check out verse 24. It says, "Suddenly," all right, they're following Jesus. They're happy. They're thinking, "This is great." They're like, "Man, we're following Jesus." And then suddenly, a violent storm arose on the sea so that the boat was being swamped by the waves that are taking on water. And listen to this little awesome detail. But Jesus kept sleeping.
· Now, if you know anything about the geography of Israel, this makes a lot of sense that all of a sudden out of nowhere, a storm would start. Uh, the Sea of Galilee sits about 700 ft below seawater and sea level and it's surrounded by hills and very narrow valleys. And often there's cool air that comes through those narrow valleys from the Mediterranean Sea. And when those go through and combine with the still warm water of the Sea of Galilee, all of a sudden that mixture creates a violent storm that erupts over the sea.
· And it's funny cuz I don't know about you, but we know something in Phoenix here about storms coming out of nowhere. Some of you may not know if you've been here soon, we got these things called monsoons. Yeah, we get them maybe once a year, sometimes every like 5 to 10 years. They are awesome. And what I mean by awesome is terrifying and make you want to run into a house and cry and scream. All right. Some of you, all right, uh, none of you, maybe like three of us, uh, were here on August 14th, 1996.
· Show of hands if you lived in Arizona. Literally 10 of us. All right.
· Okay. Um, you're all from somewhere else. I I get it. That's great. But I remember this very clearly. And here's why this monsoon and this storm was such a big deal. is it actually caused $160 million in damage to homes and businesses in the northwest valley of Phoenix. All right, it would have hit surprise at at that time I lived in Peoria and I actually got to experience this. It was so crazy that Deer Valley, it was a record high is they had gusts of 115 mph recorded at Deer Valley Airport. That's a category 3 hurricane.
· All right. And you like, I moved from Oklahoma cuz I thought there's no tornadoes here. bring our monsoons, man.
· It's fun stuff. But I remember this one so vividly because I was actually, you know how old I was in 1996?
· Five. All right. Some of that will depress you. Uh but you can just do some math and think about that one a little bit more. But as a 5-year-old, I I was at my church I grew up at 83rd in Cactus. And I think we picked up our brother my brothers on a Wednesday night um from Aana. And I just sat in there as we're looking through these glass doors and there's like trees just going down the street and water rushing away. And what's crazy is a storm came out of nowhere.
· And the disciples, they get on this boat and all of a sudden a violent and a sudden and a terrifying storm just breaks out. This wasn't a little drizzle. This was a shaking. The kind of storm that makes experienced fishermen, guys who grew up on the lake, fear for their lives. And think about the guys who are here. These are disciples of Jesus. Peter, Andrew, James, and John before they started following Jesus.
· They were commercial fishermen. They had been on this water thousands of times.
· And if they were panicking, this means it wasn't a normal day on the lake. You know, when you're flying a plane, you know when is the proper time to be scared when you hit turbulence?
· If you look at the flight attendant and they're calm and they're saying, "Hey, we're suspending drink service." and then they go and they strap in and start reading like their Kindle or doing their nails. You're like, "Okay, everything's fine." If you look over and they're gripping things tight and they look terrified but are trying to hold it down back, that means you're going to die because they are afraid.
· And here in the boat, the the disciples who weren't fishermen looked at the fisherman guys and like they're freaking out. We should be freaking out. We're going to die. But here's the part that I don't want you to miss. Here's my favorite part about it. What was Jesus doing? He was sleeping. Oh, you guys were about to interact. I didn't even ask that question, but you're like, he was I'm ready. He was sleeping. The boat's taking water. It's getting swamped. The waves are crashing over the sides. The disciples, they're bailing.
· They're they're bailing water. They're freaking out. And I love it. He's sleeping. Mark's gospel actually gives a little detail that he was sleeping on a cushion in the stern. I love that little detail. He had a nice pillow and he was on the stern just like taking a nap. And this detail tells us something about who Jesus is. One, it shows us that Jesus was indeed fully human. When he was here, he was fully human and fully God.
· That Jesus took naps. Yesterday I was here with first soccer for about four and a half hours as three of my kids played soccer games. And I had a break in between trying not to die of the sun because you see me, I'm pasty. Um, but in there I went home after that and I I'm not a nap person, but I took a nap cuz I was exhausted. I was tired of watching soccer games in the sun. I did a lot of work, but I was tired and I took a nap. And then Jesus take he took naps cuz he was fully man.
· But here in the middle of this life-threatening storm, his humanity is on display. But what I love is it also tells us something about his trust in God the Father. That you think Jesus knew there was probably a storm coming? I mean, he was fully God. I think when he walked in that boat, he knew a storm was going to come. I think when he laid his head down to take a nap, he knew the storm was coming, but he just slept through the storm cuz he's like, "Hey guys, don't worry about it. I I know the guy upstairs um like me and him, we got this cool link.
· Like we are actually one and three persons is crazy. He'll blow your mind." But he's like, he's not scared because he knew that God was supreme and God was sovereign. And here's the reality I think we need to hear as the church is that following Jesus does not mean that you will never face a storm.
· Some of you may be walked in here today and maybe everything looks great on the outside, but inside your heart is in a storm. Maybe your marriage is struggling. Maybe your health is not where you want it to be and you're getting bad news after bad news. Maybe your kid is making choices that you keep on praying, God, let him stop being an idiot or her and they just keep making those choices and it's driving you crazy. Maybe your finances are underwater. No pun intended there, right? But maybe you're carrying anxiety that you can't even name.
· And I think for some of us, there's this subtle lie we believe that like, man, if I follow Jesus, if I go to church, if I start reading my Bible, if I start praying, then life's going to be like skipping through daisies, it's going to be easier. It's going to be better. It's going to be nice. I heard a nice preacher with a jet on the TV screen and a nice suit says that if I follow Jesus, life will get better. And then you're like, I follow Jesus and my life seems like it's worse.
· And here's the deal. Just because we're with Jesus and following Jesus does not mean the storms of life will not come. But here is the beauty in this is when the storm comes. Our God is still there. The disciples were in the will of God. They were with Jesus. It didn't prevent the storm, but it did redeem it.
· In 1915, the explorer Ernest Shackleton, which I just want to say, one of the coolest names you'll ever hear. All right, Ernest Shackleton. I read this story and I thought about changing my name on the spot. Um, if only my last name could be Shackleton. I would go by Pastor Shackleton. Um, because it would sound cooler than Andrew. But anyway, Ernest Shackleton, his crew, they set out for Antarctica with their ship, the Endurance.
· And as they're going through and exploring Antarctica, they became trapped and trapped by this ice that kept expanding so much that it literally crushed their ship and they had to get out of the ship. And they were stranded on ice flows in in the middle of the most hostile ocean on Earth. And yet every account and memoir from the crew, which means they survived and did not die, they all said the same thing. They said that Shackleton's presence kept them alive. And here's the deal.
· It didn't keep him alive because he could control the ice. He couldn't. Not because he could stop the cold. He couldn't. But because when the leader was in the boat with them, who they described as calm and steady and resolved, it changed everything about how they approached the situation. And the beauty in the story is that the disciples had someone infinitely greater than Shackleton in their boat. They had the one who made the ice. They had the one who made the ocean. and who controls the wind.
· His presence did not eliminate the storm, but his presence meant the storm would not get the final word. You see, the presence of Jesus in your boat does not guarantee calm water, but it does guarantee that you will never be alone and your God is always with you.
· But this leads to our second thing that this miracle shows us about who Jesus is is it shows us that the power of Jesus does not eliminate the powerless nature of men. Check out verse 25.
· I love this verse because I think I can relate with this verse because this would be me. It's saying as they're getting swamped with water as Jesus is keep on sleeping. In verse 25, it says, "So the disciples, they came and they woke him up and saying, and there's exclamations here, Lord, save us." They're yelling at him, "Lord, save us. We're going to die."
· They're like, "Jesus, do something. Stop sleeping. Wake up. Do you see the situation we're in?" And I just love the honesty here because I think sometimes that's what our prayers look like. Not the proper theology, not the eloquence.
· You think they were talking to God and they're yelling at him to save him. But in that desperation, in that like there's knowing like we cannot control what is happening around us, they ran to him. And you know what that tells me is the storm did exactly what it was supposed to. It brought them to the very end of themselves into the very feet of Jesus. Think about this again. These were professional fishermen. They knew how to handle a boat.
· They knew how to guide a boat in the middle of a storm. But this storm was bigger than their skill set. It was bigger than their experience. It was bigger than their ability to control. And when they ran out of their own resources, they turned to Jesus.
· I've learned over the years that people often come to Jesus the same way the disciples did here. As we try to do life on our own, we try to do it within our own strength, within our own comfort, within our own bounds. But it's usually when we come to the end of ourselves that we find like, "Oh, maybe I should actually reach out to this God to see if there's something better." All of a sudden, the marriage counseling isn't working like I thought it would. All of a sudden, I got this new promotion and I still feel this deep and dark void in my heart that has not gone away.
· All of a sudden, my kids I' I've tried every parenting hack on TikTok and they're worse than they were before I tried those things. And we try to do things and it doesn't get better. When we come to the end of ourselves is when we often run to the feet of Jesus.
· And here's honestly a warning I think with this in us here especially as Christians in America is we think we are doing better than we are because we are comfortable because our lives we don't have to worry about whether we have enough money in the bank account half the times or we have food on the table and we're comfortable and we think everything is great but inside the storm of life is wreaking havoc destroying us and we need to recognize it and come to the feet of Christ and here's the beauty in this is God is gracious enough to use those storms to reveal who he is.
· Look at verse 26 as they say, "Lord, save us. We're going to die." After they're probably shaking him to wake him up, he said to them, this is Jesus responding to his disciples, "Why are you afraid, you of little faith?" He He kind of like talks to them almost like a father to a child.
· He's like, "Why are you so scared? Like, we got this. This is fine. Like, there's nothing to be afraid of. Why are you so afraid?
· And then look what happens in the second part of this. Then he got up. He rebuked the winds and the sea. He turned to the elements. He's like, "Settle down now."
· Like, "Cut it out. That's enough. We made our point." And what happens?
· And then there was a great calm.
· I think there's a few things we need to see. And I don't want us to rush past this because I think two things happen in this verse that are absolutely stunning. First, Jesus rebukes the disciples, but what does he rebuke them for? He doesn't rebuke them for coming to him. They were right to come to him, but he rebukes them for being afraid when they come to him. And he says this, "You of little faith." He didn't say, "You have no faith." They had faith.
· They came to Jesus because they thought he could do something, but they had little faith because they thought if Jesus didn't act right, then he would let them die. And he's saying, "Hey, your faith isn't the problem. You have a little bit of faith." And the Bible says our faith is great. That a faith is small of a mustard seed can change our lives. When we have faith in God, it changes everything. But the power was not in how much faith they had. The power was in the object of their faith.
· That they believed in the God of the universe. And our faith is strong only when the object of our faith is strong. And here's the deal. The object of their faith was not a sleeping man in a boat who couldn't do anything. Instead, the object of their faith and our faith today is the sovereign creator of everything.
· He rebukes them for not believing enough that they could trust him. But that leads to the second thing is then Jesus then rebukes the storm. Man, this is such an awesome moment. Mark's gospel actually tells us what Jesus said in that rebuke. In Mark's gospel, it says he stood up and it says with exclamation parts, so he's probably loud. says, "Silence, be still."
· Now, this summer when it's 120, I'm going to just start coming out of my door when it's 120°, BE LIKE, "STOP IT.
· Get cooler."
· But I don't think it's going to work. I'll try it for you guys, though. All right. Uh, Bible tells us if you have faith, you know, you can that mountain can be thrown into the sea. So, maybe if I have faith, all of a sudden, it can come from 120 to 85. I'll have faith. Um, it just might not work.
· But Jesus, most baller moment ever, yells at winds and waves in a hurricane and says, "Knock it off." And it does. It doesn't even take time.
· It's like, "Oh." And then in the next 10 minutes, it passed by. It's just like the waves were like, "Oh crap." And then like went down. They're like, "God's talking. We better be careful." Like, "We got to figure this out." And here's why this matters so much is I love this because the disciples, they were good Jewish boys. that they knew their Old Testament. And in the Old Testament, there is only one being who has the authority over the wind and the waves.
· Psalm 89:9, listen to these verses. It says, "You being God rule the raging seas. When its waves surge, you steal them." It's saying, "God, you have the ability to will. You have the ability to stir the waves and surge the waves, but also to steal them." And Psalm 107:29 says, "He stilled the storm to a murmur, and the waves of the sea were hushed."
· It's only talking about God is the only one that could do this. In Job 38, God himself says to Job, "Who shut the doors of the sea when it burst from the womb?"
· When they're hearing Jesus say this, they're like, "Hey, only Yahweh can do that. Only God can do that. Only he controls the sea." And Jesus did it with a word. And you see this is the point of the story that Jesus stilled the sea as only God can.
· Now I know many sermons on this passage and I listened to so many great sermons and read so many great commentaries and this is part usually this passage they go straight to so what storms are you facing in your life and Jesus can calm those storms and I would say some of that is probably not great ex Jesus of the text because just because Jesus calmed this storm does not mean he's going to calm every storm. Listen Jesus does walk with you through the storm but that's not the main point here. Instead, the point is much deeper than that. The point is that Jesus is God.
· That the authority that belongs to God alone is the authority that belongs to Jesus. And the promise of this story is that not all of your storms in life will end soon. Here is the hard thing is the Bible does not guarantee our storms will go away. The Bible does not guarantee if you're walking through a battle of cancer or sickness that it'll just be wiped away and gone. The Bible does not guarantee that, but God will be with you. The Bible doesn't guarantee that the struggle in your marriage will end this week or even this year. It may keep going.
· It may keep trying, but it doesn't guarantee that. The promise is not that all of a sudden your idiot son will get it figured out. He might still be dumb for a little while longer as you're praying for him, right? The promise is not that your financial situation will flip upside down or all of a sudden your boss will be less of a jerk. The promise is not any of that.
· Instead, the promise is that you will never be alone. that God himself in the person of Jesus Christ will be with you every step of the way. And here's what it tells us to do is that faith is not a confidence that trials won't come your way. They will come. But faith is confidence that no matter what wind and waves come your way in this world, they may wreck you. They may destroy your life. They may even hurt you to the point of death.
· But the God of the universe will be right there with you in the boat by your side. And for us this morning, as we read this passage and we let it stir in our hearts, here is the miraculous truth that we are drawn to is that Jesus's authority over nature. It proves that he is worthy of our trust.
· Look at verse 27 again. I just love this as we think about he has this great authority and and and he shows why should we trust him? It says, "The men were amazed, saying, "What kind of man is this?" And they describe what kind of man he is that even the winds and the sea obey him.
· What kind of man is this? That's that's the question. And that's the question this entire series is going to answer week after week. But here's what I want to see. What you see in this question that the fear the disciples felt after the miracle was greater than the fear they felt during it. And before it in in Mark's gospel, it says here in Matthew that they were amazed and asked this. In Mark's gospel, it says they were terrified. They just saw the storms come up.
· But what's even scarier is they saw a God man rebuke that storm and they're like, "We are in the presence of the almighty God of the universe." That's a big old deal. And they were terrified.
· They were fearful. They were in reverent awe that the God of the universe would dwell with them. They were starting to realize that this Jesus was something greater. And I love the parallels between this story and the story of Jonah. Jesus in Matthew 12 calls himself the greater Jonah. And Jonah's story in the Old Testament. He's a prophet that ran away from God. And as he ran away, he was caught up in a storm. And he was thrown into the sea. He said, "Hey, throw me into the sea so that the storm would stop." And as he's thrown into the sea, he's gobbled up by a fish. Great story. You should go read it sometime.
· It's awesome. But in Jesus's story that the son of God, he moves towards the mission instead of running away and he was caught in a storm. And what did he do? He commanded the sea to stop. He's like, "That's not the storm I'm facing. I'm I'm gearing up for a bigger storm."
· And then Jesus pressed through in his life. And the storm he would ultimately face was the storm of God's wrath that was reserved for our sins. The storm that led him to dying on the cross and being crucified. And he didn't stop that storm. Instead, he defeated that storm by raising from the grave. And we see Jesus Christ here. This picture we get of him is that he can perform any miracle that our world could ever hope to encounter.
· But he also comes down here to dwell with us, to show us something greater, and to change our lives forever.
· So here's the question is, how does this call us to respond this morning? And I think there are two passing two type of people that are in the room today. First is if you are a believer. I think the response and the challenge and the push and the conviction is you need to ask where am I not trusting God? Maybe you have a storm in your life. Maybe you're trying to do things on your own. You're trying to do things in your willpower, in your plans, in your comfort, and your ability.
· And it looks good for a while, but a storm eventually is going to come and it is going to wreak havoc in your life. And are you going to trust yourself?
· Or are you going to trust the God of the universe who's sleeping in the boat who could steal that storm at any time? And maybe you need to look deep and say, "God, the storms that I'm facing, am I going to trust you through it?"
· But maybe that's not you.
· Maybe you're here cuz you got tricked into coming Easter and then maybe you just showed up the next week cuz you thought that's what everyone did and you're like, "Wow, there's a few more open chairs this week than there was last week." It's kind of right. And maybe you you came on Easter and then you came back again and I'm glad you're here. Maybe you're like, "I don't know if I'm following this Jesus." You're a little skeptical. You don't know if this is the God of the universe that truly can change your life.
· But here's what I want you to hear this morning. that the same Jesus who stood up in a boat and told a hurricane to sit down is the same Jesus that wants to be Lord of your life and change not just your life today but for all of eternity. And when we see this Jesus who has the authority over the wind and the waves, this Jesus that the forces of nature obey his voice.
· Then isn't he worthy of our trust this morning?
· All of it.
· Not just Sunday morning trust for an hour. Not just when things are good, trust. But in all seasons, in all times, and in all storms, do we trust that he is the God of the universe.
Miracles of Jesus