Sunday, February 24- In The Storm
2024-02-25
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-jtDqtiYo0

Let's go ahead and have a word of prayer. Father in heaven, we thank you for your word, and we thank you for this account of Jesus in the storm. We just ask that as we are here this morning that you would calm our worried hearts, that you would calm our stormy and difficult thoughts, that you would help us. To see Jesus. And as a church, we ask that you would help us to realize that we are not alone, that you are with us in times that are good and the times where there is struggle. And may we be a people who proclaim the goodness to those who are outside. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. I want to just begin with this before we dive into our text this morning is that Jesus knows your struggles. He has been where you are now. And he has been where you will be in the future. Hebrews will tell us since the children partook of flesh and blood, speaking about us being physical beings, that he himself likewise partook of the same things, so that ultimately through death, he might destroy us.

He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through the fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. And as we begin and as we get ready to look at Jesus in this moment where you see so clearly his humanity displayed and the fact that he is tired, and in fact, he is so tired, he can sleep through a massive storm, but also we see his deity, his godness displayed. His goodness displayed in the fact that the storm recognizes the voice of their creator and instantly ceases. I want us to remember that Jesus, first of all, has been where we are. He's experienced the difficulties and the storms and the joys and the hurts of our lives, but he has also the one who has triumphed over all of them and calls us to put our hope and faith in him. And so we're going to begin just very simply

with the fact that Jesus is very tired. And we're going to pick this text up in Luke chapter eight, beginning in verse 22, going into the first half of 23. One day he got into the boat with his disciples and he said to them, let us go across to the other side of the lake. So they set out and as they sailed, he fell asleep. There is a lot of ways for us to find ourselves in a place where we are very tired. Sometimes we are tired, but we're content, right? We've worked hard. We've gotten a bunch of things accomplished, maybe physically, maybe intellectually, maybe a little bit of both. And we get to the end of the day and we look back and we're tired and we just simply say, you know what? Today was a good day. I checked things off the to-do list. I didn't encounter any major problems. I'm tired, but I'm satisfied with how life went today.

There are those other days where we are tired, but we end the day grumpy and incredibly frustrated. In those moments where it seems like nothing went right, nothing got done, every project we began to start found itself with some kind of snag or some kind of problem or some kind of difficulty. And so we get to the end of the day and nothing has gone right and we're tired, but we're also angry and frustrated. We're just simply, utterly and physically just completely worn out. The kind of days where maybe we have worked very hard and we've done something different than we normally do and we just sit down and it's like we just almost instantly want to fall asleep. Jesus, as we approach this, is emotionally and physically tired. He has spent the days and the weeks prior to this moment, he has been preaching, he has been healing.

And one of the things about both of those things are they are a pouring out of the deepest part of yourself. Charles Spurgeon, one of my favorite preachers outside of Scripture will say this, "All mental work tends to weary and depress, for much study is a weariness of the flesh." But then he goes on to speak about how proclamation and how preaching is more than just head work or physical work, but it's heart work. It's a labor of the utter, of the inmost soul. And he says this, "After pouring out our souls over our congregations, we feel like empty earthen pitchers which a child might break." And Jesus at this point has been pouring out of himself into these crowds, and in some cases into people who aren't there to hear and to learn and to be transformed, but they're there to oppose him. So there's this additional struggle of opposition and Jesus is utterly and

completely exhausted. And we know that there are different stages of exhaustion, especially if you've been around young children. There are times where maybe our kids will fall asleep in the car, and as soon as the car stops, what happens? Their eyes just pop open, and that 15 minutes has invigorated them for another 12 hours. And then there's times where they fall asleep in the car, and you can pull them out of their car seat upside down and just drop them into bed, and they are so tired that they don't even notice what happens, and they wake up the next morning and go, "Thought we were in the car." Jesus is not just kind of asleep a little bit. He is so exhausted that in the midst of a massive storm, in a tiny boat, he is sound asleep. He was able to sleep through the depths of this storm. In fact, that's what Luke says in Luke chapter 8, and in verse 23 it says,

"As they sailed, he fell asleep, and a wind storm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water, and they were in danger." So it's not just that you've got some nice waves gently rocking Jesus to sleep. This is a storm where there was an element of danger happening. And so while Jesus is getting some rest, it is a different situation for the disciples. Because for the disciples, this is simply chaos and confusion. Look what it says in Luke chapter 8 beginning in verse 23. "And as they sailed, he fell asleep, and a wind storm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water, and they were in danger. And they went and woke him saying, 'Master, Master, we are perishing.'" There is something that is absolutely terrifying about beginning to sink into water, especially when you have no control over it. I shared a few Sundays ago about the time where I ended up with one of my uncles adrift in the middle of Lake Champlain in Vermont in this tiny little rubber inflatable boat that pops so easily. And it was just a few weeks later after that adventure to the middle of the lake where we surprisingly did not pop the boat and did not drown, me and my brother and my sister

were sitting in this very same boat along this sort of rocky shore, and we were probably in maybe a foot of water, just enough that there was clearance. And I was, I don't know, Brent was probably two years old, so I was probably eight. My sister was four. And we're all kind of just sitting, floating in this boat. And then all of a sudden, this little inflatable boat hits a really sharp point of rock. And I just remember, I don't remember much of the events. I've heard about them from my parents. But I just remember the panic, as all of a sudden, the boat just completely disappeared. And we had no context or thought to the fact that we were in, like, a foot of water. We immediately began scrambling for the high ground, which happened to be, like, my two-year-old brother. Like, in those situations, like, it's every man for himself. And I'm sorry that you can't compete with us, but it's just your time, right? This is what happened.

And we were in a foot of water. Like, we didn't even have to stand up. We could have laid down and not drowned. But that moment of the boat disappearing was ultimate and absolute panic. This is what is happening to Jesus' disciples. But unlike me and my siblings, there is a real danger that they are going to die. And it's interesting, because this account is recorded in three out of the four Gospels. It's found in Luke, which is where we are this morning. It's found in Matthew and in Mark. And what's interesting is if you put these three Gospel accounts side by side, the disciples will say something different in each of these three accounts. In Luke, it's, "Master, Master, we're perishing." In Matthew, it's, "Lord, save us, we're perishing." In Mark, it's a little more cynical. It's, "Teacher, don't you care that we're perishing?"

about why those words might be different in all three accounts, right? This is a situation where there is so much danger, and there is so much fear. I don't think the disciples had a moment to organize themselves and say, "All right, who's going to go wake up Jesus, and what are we going to say?" Right? Matthew and Mark and Luke are recording this cacophony of cries, "Don't you care? We're drowning. Save us. We're perishing." All of these people shouting at once as the disciples are seeing their ultimate doom drowning this water. It's chaos, and it is confusion. So on one hand, you have the peace of Jesus sleeping, and on the other hand, you have the chaos and the confusion of the disciples, and what you find is that Jesus is the one who brings peace, especially into the midst of our confusion and chaos.

It says this, "They went and they woke him, saying, 'Master, Master, we are perishing.'" And he awoke, and he rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was calm. I want you to see, because I think it's so important, Jesus doesn't gently ask the wind and the waves. He commands. And the language that he uses is one of confrontation and authority. And what Luke is doing in recording this is he's making sure that we understand that the power of the weather, which even now we can't control and sometimes risks great death with us, that Jesus is bigger and more powerful and stronger than those things that we think can overwhelm us. In fact, you see this power repeated through the rest of Luke, the eighth chapter over and over again, over death and over demons and over sickness and over the unknown, you find Jesus exercising his power.

Here's the thing. We can be influential in a whole lot of areas in our life. We can seek to be in control of a lot of areas of our life. If we want to try to see the size and the scope of our power, go up against the weather. When Rachel and I were getting married, our reception was going to be outside. And I remember going back and forth and both of us talking about and praying that after the wedding was done, that the reception would be clear and sunny, right? Because you never know when it might rain. And that's the struggle with outdoor weddings, right? We can try to predict the weather. We can try to hope for a nice day. But sometimes when you get married outside, it's going to rain, or sometimes it's going to clear off and start raining again, right?

These things happen, and at the moment we change our plans, and it doesn't matter how certain we are of our plans, it doesn't work. You see, one of the object lessons that we see in Luke chapter 8 is that there is weather. We can ask it please, we can threaten it, you better stop, we can beg, we can bargain, but we cannot control it. In fact, all of our begging, pleading, and bargaining has no effect on it, but Jesus does. It's really easy for us to be proud of our accomplishments until we try to stop the storm. We begin to see our smallness, and in this text we see the greatness of Jesus. In fact, that's what Jesus, I think, is communicating to his disciples. He asks them this question, "Where is your faith?" And in Luke 8:25 he says this, "Where is your faith?"

And I want you to think about the purpose of Jesus in asking this question. I don't think Jesus is trying to criticize his disciples, right? There will be some people who say Jesus is criticizing these guys who are terrified in the midst of a life-threatening storm. And what they'll say is, "Look, storms listen to Jesus. They get out of the boat on the other side of the lake. Demons listen to Jesus. There's a dead girl, just a few verses on, who listens to Jesus. All these things listen to Jesus, but the disciples don't." I don't think, however, Jesus is criticizing the disciples, right? They, as they face drowning, are not asking, first of all, for something unreasonable, right? We don't want to drown. But secondly, they're not asking for something that they can do themselves, right?

They can't fix this problem. And in asking Jesus, they are saying, "We are weak. You are strong." I don't think that Jesus is criticizing them. I think Jesus is teaching them, because tone matters, right? You can say to somebody, "Where's your faith?" Or you can gently speak to someone saying, "Hey, where is your faith?" I don't think Jesus here is scoffing and making the disciples feel small and asking where their faith is. He's going and he's reminding them, saying, "Hey, where is your hope? Where is your faith?" And what Jesus is doing is he's addressing their attitude rather than their request, right? Their attitude is panicky. And in some cases, accusatory, "Don't you care for us?" Or maybe hopeless, "Master, we're perishing." The word that he uses there is not one of there might be danger, but that our death is imminent.

Jesus isn't asking this question to put these people in their place, or to make them feel bad about the size of their faith. He's saying gently, "Where is your faith?" What he's saying is, "I'm right here." You've seen me do amazing things. You've seen people who can't walk, walk. You've seen people who can't see, see. You've seen food that should have only fed one child, feed a group of 5,000. What Jesus is doing in asking this question is he is shifting the disciples' eyes from the bigness of their fears to the goodness of God. The things they can't control to the one who has control over all of the storms. And one of the things that we see is that with Jesus, it is never hopeless, right? It may not be easy, and it may not be comfortable, but when Jesus is with us, and he is, it is never hopeless.

We also see that in the middle of the chaos and confusion of the storm, it's easy to forget the goodness and the greatness of God. It's easy in our struggles and hurts to think that he doesn't care. And think about where Jesus is. Where is Jesus in the midst of this storm? Is he standing on the bank with binoculars, looking at this little boat going, "Man, I hope they do okay." Is he getting daily reports from people who are reporting on the situation? Jesus is not observing, and he's not getting... He is in the storm with the disciples. It is easy for us in those struggles and in those hurts to say, "Where is Jesus?" And in this story, where do we... He's right there with them. He's next to them. He's in the same boat as they are.

What we see is that our faith requires exercise. It can't just simply be an intellectual idea or a good feeling that comes and goes. That our faith has to be, first of all, built upon the one who is faithful. But it has to be exercised through constant reminder that He is the one in whom our hope is placed. I'm going to ask you three questions. First of all, are you living your faith? It's easy to say that we have faith. It's easy to acknowledge that Jesus is who He is. But are we living Him? This morning we started a new class in our little small Sunday morning Bible study. And there was a verse that I've read probably a million times, but I've never thought of it. It's in John chapter 11. And as Jesus is going to Bethany to wake Lazarus up.

Lazarus has died. Jesus says, "I'm going to go wake him up." And he shouldn't be going to Bethany because there's all kinds of opposition. There's people who want to kill him. And Thomas looks at everybody and goes, "Well, he's going. Let's go with him and die with him." So he's a little pessimistic, right? But he says, "This guy's our hope." And even though we don't know where this ends, and it could end very badly for us, I am going to follow Jesus. Your faith as individuals and our faith as a church must be more than simply agreeing or thinking or feeling something now and then. It has to be reflected in obedience and being willing to say, "I don't know where this road is going, but I am going to follow Jesus in the trust that he is the one who is bigger than the storms,

that he is bigger than my fears and he is bigger than sin and he is bigger than the death that has paralyzed me for so long." Secondly, are we encouraging one another in these things? You see, faith and faithfulness and hope and joy, they're community projects. They're meant to be accomplished and meant to happen in the presence of one another. At the end of Thessalonians, as this church is struggling with the return of Jesus, and they're struggling with a whole bunch of things, you know what Paul says about the teaching that he's just given them? He says, "Encourage one another with these words." And he says to the church, you've got to encourage each other, specifically with the words that have been given to you. As we think and we say, "Jesus is bigger than our storms," are we living like he is?

And secondly, there's going to be times where all of us feel weak. There's going to be times when all of us feel strong, and we must encourage one another. We must be honest with one another, right? It can be hard to encourage somebody if you don't know they're struggling. So I pray that we would have the humility to say to one another, "I'm struggling right now. I'm hurting, I'm fearful," and that we would have the grace with one another to seek to encourage and help in these moments. Third, I would say this. We have this hope that in the middle of the storm, Jesus is in control. Is this a hope that we are sharing with the world? This is not a hope to be hidden in the ground and dug up again someday, but it is a hope that is meant to be used, and it is meant to be shared.

And as we look to the storms of life this morning, I want to direct your eyes to the goodness of Jesus, the one to whom even the wind and the waves listen to. Who is this that the wind and the waves listen to? It's Jesus, the Son of God, who has come to save this world. Christians, we've got to remember that in our storms, Jesus is bigger. And if you are not a Christian this morning, life is stormy. There's no way around it. It can be good for moments here and there, but there will be struggles. There will be difficulties. I want you to direct you to the one who is bigger than your storms. Let's pray. Father, thank you for Jesus. Remind our hearts this morning that even in the darkest times, there is hope that we are not alone.

May we as a church live our faith. May we encourage one another in our faith, and may we proclaim our faith. We thank you for Jesus. It's in his name we pray. Amen.