Again, Matthew chapter 8, verses 23 through 27.
And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him, and
behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the
boat was being swamped by the waves, but he was asleep.
And they went and woke him, saying, Save us, Lord, we are
perishing. And he said to them, Why are you
afraid, O you of little faith? Then he rose and rebuked the
winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.
And the men marvelled, saying, What sort of man is this, that
even the winds and the sea obey him?
What's the word of the Lord? What's going on in Port City?
Family and friends, how are we doing?
Good. My name is Tanner.
I'm excited to be with you. We're rocking through our series
in Matthew chapters 8 and 9, And one thread we've been talking
about a lot is the concept of childlike faith.
Somebody say childlike faith. Yeah.
I'm just so encouraged this morning that childlike faith
does not mean you check your brain at the door, OK?
Like, we are not advocating naivete, OK?
We are saying that Christianity is the most robust explanation
for why life is the way it is. The person of Jesus is the king
of the world. This is a a worldview, a life
view that has been studied for thousands of years.
And y'all is the most profound story in the history of the
world. And it's true.
So I'm so encouraged this morning that we don't have to
check our brains at the door. In the text we just had read, we
have a story that makes sense of the life we're living.
OK? Our brains need to be engaged to
understand this, and our hearts are living life with a God who
is both over the storm and in the boat and asleep, Amen,
somebody. And that is a hard life to live.
So the good news is this morning you have permission to be human,
that this is not going to be easy and you need your brain
engaged, OK? This is a brain heart, and
hopefully we walk out of here living it with our bodies.
That's the goal, is that your head, your heart, and your hands
will connect. Amen.
I'm going to pray for our time and God's Word, and then we're
going to dive into it. So pray with me our Father God,
what we know not here today. Would you teach us God, what we
have not? Would you give us what we are
not? Would you make us?
Lord? Just let the words of my mouth,
let the meditation of our hearts right now under your very sight,
be acceptable in your sight. We pray in the mighty name of
Jesus, Amen. Y'all got to be honest with you
this morning. I hate pain.
I hate it. I hate pain.
I hate big pain. I hate emotional pain.
I hate breaking bones pain. I hate when my friends are going
through pain and I can't take it away.
I hate it when pain comes in big ways.
I hate inconveniences. I hate when I ordered the number
two last time and it tasted like this and now this time it tastes
like that. Why does?
It taste like it did last time. I would have got something else
if I knew. This time y'all made it too
watery. Like what are y'all doing?
Y'all overcooked it. So I hate pain.
I hate inconvenience. And I learned something about my
body and my brain. That is true of your body and
your brain. You are hard wired to pursue
pleasure and avoid pain. Did you know that that is what
your body is doing every second of every day is it feels
threatened by pain and inconvenience and it is seeking
pleasure. It is a survival tactic, OK.
And so we've just got to be honest as we come to a text
about a storm, about Jesus, the God of the universe, somehow
knowing the storm was coming and being in the boat and being
asleep. Like the reason this Texas
captured people's imagination for thousands of years is it
makes so much sense of life. And while walking with Jesus is
so hard at the same time, you know, and we can read it and
learn from it. But when you live this within
about 30 seconds of a storm, you want ice cream and to get out of
it at all costs because that's what you're hardwired for.
Does that make sense? So we can make life in the storm
seem like it's not that hard? Like, we got this and then the
storm hits and you're like, yeah, where's the quickest exit
ramp now? Like right now, I want out.
So as much as our brains can get it, it's hard to live it.
Are you with me? And I don't know what you're
going through. And the temptation to 1:00 to
1:00. What is the storm of my life?
I don't fully know. OK.
So just take that with you as we get started.
But y'all, this text, Jesus stealed this storm.
He does not steal every storm. It's reality.
He was declaring something about who he is.
Matthew wants us to see that, and it's OK that we recognize
that. Our ongoing life with Jesus
feels very much how this one episode felt.
Does that make sense? So it's one time, true, all the
time applicable as we dive in and we just got to hold all that
intention, engage our minds, engage our brains, and hopefully
we walk out of here living with Jesus.
Does that make sense? So my hope for you, whether you
follow Jesus or not, is that you would walk out of here convinced
that following Jesus is the most compelling explanation for why
life is the way it is. And it would engage your heart
that you would be eager to trust and love this God.
OK, He is amazing. There's nobody like them.
So what we're going to do is we're going to walk through the
verses. Just make sure we kind of
understand them. And I got 3 truths for in the
storm, 2 insights on faith in the storm, and then one
invitation. If you are ready, let me hear
you say I'm ready. Let's get it.
Look at verse 23. And when he got into the boat,
his disciples followed him. OK, I want to take you back to
the previous little thing. Back in verse 18 last week we
looked at this. It said, now when Jesus saw a
crowd around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side.
And then at the end of that little story in verse 22, and
Jesus said to him, follow me and leave the dead to bury their own
dead. So the whole conversation from
last week, Jesus has the crowd, He's been doing healings.
He says, let's go to the other side.
People approach him. Now this week we're picking up
in the story where they're getting on to the boat to go to
the other side. Presumably I argued last week,
the second of those two people who talk to Jesus is getting on
the boat with him to go to the other side.
So here's what I love about this.
Do you notice at verse 23, if Jesus hadn't gotten in the boat,
the disciples wouldn't have either.
Did you see that? And when he.
Got into the boat. His disciples followed him.
It's almost like what? Do we do?
There's water, He said let's go to the other side and there's a
boat. He gets in, then they get in.
I I just love that imagery. If they're like a kid almost not
knowing what to do until you tell him exactly what to do.
Can I tell you something, follower of Jesus, that at a
base level you are following Jesus and just copy what he
does? Yeah.
When Jesus 1st called followers, what he was inviting them to was
to become him. If he pours his Chai that way,
you pour your Chai that way. If he walks to the left, you
walk to the left. If he walks in the room that
way, you do. If he walks in and don't greet
nobody, you don't greet nobody. You copied his every single
movement. You were trying to become your
rabbi. That's what it meant to follow
Jesus. So this should encourage.
You even though you're. Following is less physical than
the original disciples were. If God has saved you, He saved
you so you'd follow him, so you'd copy him, so you download
His way into your life, so you do what you do the way He would
do it. How encouraging is it that God
wants to live his life? Through you.
The way you get in the boat is the way he would get in the
boat. And the way this has been
popularized a little bit is a little slogan.
What would Jesus do? Incredible slogan.
The way I tend to hear that explained though, is it tends to
apply to momentary decisions or like what would he do in that
moment or like a big decision or something like that.
But the whole idea is kind of like always, you are downloading
and embodying what Christ would do.
It's what would he do if he were you?
It's his life in you. Does that make sense?
So even the question gets begged of like, you're clearly not him,
So what would he do there? But the idea is that you are
becoming an embodiment of him in your personality, your location,
your vocation. Does that make sense?
So the good news for? You here today, if you are
saved, is God saved you so that you would follow him so that
you'd walk in a room and be like Jesus, What are you doing in
this room and how do I get in on it?
What are you doing in this gathering?
How can I encourage this group of people?
And the crazy thing is the more you think about what Christ will
be doing, the more you'll notice he's working in you because
you're united to him by grace through faith and the Spirit
indwells you and he is living through you.
Amen. God saved you so you'd follow
him. Verse 24 And behold, there arose
a great storm on the sea so that the boat was being swamped by
the waves, but he was asleep. He was sleep, as some people
like to say. And what I love about this y'all
is that Jesus at some kind of way he knew from the moment he
said, let's go to the other side, this would happen.
He knew, He knew this was going to go down and the storm comes
and. His Joker is asleep.
He's asleep. Y'all into the Jewish mind,
which is Matthew's primary audience, the person that they
think of who once slept on a boat when everybody was about to
die, is a man by the name of Jonah.
OK, Now Jonah, as you might remember, was sleeping to get
away from God. He got on the boat to get away
from the Lord. You could say he was sleeping on
God. Are you with me?
He was sleeping on the will of God, trying to get away from the
will of God. Jesus counter to that represents
sleeping in the will of God. Jesus is not detaching from
God's will as he sleeps on his boat.
He is in it. Are you with me?
So Jesus is a model to us of resting into God's will and not
trying to get away from it. And y'all, as we just kind of
ease our way into this text, isn't it comforting to know that
what you think is about to kill you?
Jesus can sleep in now hear me. That's not a dismissive.
It shouldn't bother you don't hear that.
That's that's the tension we've got to hold in this text.
But it's just. Comforting that they thought
they were going to die. And he was asleep again.
He. Cares about these brothers.
He put them on the boat, so we can't say he don't care.
He put them there, he's with them.
He handpicked them. But he can sleep in it.
I just need to remember sometimes when my life feels
like it's falling apart. Jesus could sleep in this.
Not in a dismissive way, but in a what feels like death to us is
sleepable to Jesus, OK? Psalm 139, Even darkness is not
dark to you. We need to remember that in all
the ways we need Jesus to be like us, He is.
He's a real human, real life. We can't act like everything he
did was not hard because he was also God.
He was fully human in the ways it meant to be human.
Wasn't like he pushed some button within himself to make
him go sleep. He could sleep as a human, OK,
but in all the ways we need him to not be like us and like not
overwhelm him. He's not like us, which is so
reassuring. Verse 25 And they went and woke
him saying save us. Lord we are.
Perishing y'all, They did something right.
They went to Jesus and woke him up.
Have you ever been in a situation where you're like, do
I wake them up? And you, you, you're feeling the
rising ante and eventually you wake them up.
Maybe it was a parent, maybe it was a friend.
Can you imagine when the storm starts, like we read it and it's
like it goes from zero to 100. But I'm sure the waves we're
building, they're like, you want to get Jesus?
And one of them is like, no, not yet.
And they're like, I think now is the time.
Like they probably debated it. And then at the moment they
thought they were going to die, They're like, I think it's time,
guys, let's wake up. Jesus, it's time.
Wake them up. So they finally go to him and
they wake him up. So they did the right thing
because they went to the right source.
OK. And one thing you got to be
thinking here today, even if you're not a Christ follower, is
you go somewhere when the storm comes.
So the question isn't do you go somewhere is where do you go?
They did the right thing and they went to Jesus and they woke
him up. That took faith.
That was something they went to the right place.
The issue I think is seen a little bit in the the last
little phrase save us Lord, we are perishing.
So I don't think the issue is where they went.
I think it was their assessment of their situation.
OK verse 26 and he said to them, why are you afraid?
O you a little faith. Then he rose and rebuked the
winds in the sea and there was a great calm.
Y'all can we Can we talk about how awesome Jesus is?
Right quick. Just look at.
Look at. Verse 26 again OK, when did he
physically get up? Just have that in your mind as
you read it. It says and he said to them, why
are you afraid of you a little faith.
Then he rose and rebuke the winds.
So do we agree that he stood up to rebuke the winds, which means
he was laying down when he. Said, why are you afraid of you?
A little faith. I never thought about that
before until I read it this week.
Which means, just to be clear, they think they're dying.
He's sleeping. He sleep.
Comes to him, wakes him up. He does not get up laying down.
Just imagine Jesus looking up at you and saying.
Why are you afraid of you of little faith?
I wonder how long the pause was, you know?
And again, what do you even hear as his tone?
Like maybe you hear. Why are you afraid of you,
little faith? I don't hear that.
I hear a man just woken up. Why are you afraid of you little
faith? Storm's still going, y'all.
He hasn't rebuked it yet. Like Jesus is just cool like
that. He stares you down in your fear,
inviting you to further trust. Then he rises up and rebukes the
wind. So I love that that that that
the way that flesh is out and behind that tone is not
condemnation, y'all, It's invitation.
He's not condemning you for the faith you don't have.
He sees what you've got and he's inviting you to mourn.
OK, So if your tone here today of what you hear from the Lord
is you should have enough faith, That's not the spirit of what
he's saying. He's inviting you to mourn.
He's saying fear has helped you survive in the past is not going
to help you thrive in the future.
There's a new way. So he's inviting you with his
head on that pillow with a gentle tone.
He's vulnerable. They're standing over him.
Verse 27 and the men marveled saying what sort of man is this
that even wins in C Obey him. They marvel.
Marvel just means they're astonished.
They are. Their mind is blown OK, which is
understandable given what He just did.
But what I want to draw your attention to real quick is that
notice that they marvel at Him because of what He did.
Y'all, the goal of your life is to trace the line from the
activity of God to the person of God.
Hear me y'all, thanking God As for what He did, praising Him As
for who He is. The goal of your life is to love
God for who He is, is to trace his activity to his essence.
They saw what he did and they said, what sort of man is this
that even wins and see obey him. The idea is who is this guy that
can do what we just saw? But they didn't then move
forward thinking, so do this. So do this, so do this.
Do y'all notice that now they're just like, I'm rocking with him?
Are y'all tracking that? That's what it means to Marvel
is to be in on who he is. So our text begins with
following. It ends with marveling.
Y'all see that even those who are followers are ongoing
marvelers. The goal of marvelers is to
follow and followers marvel. If you marvel, you follow.
You follow that which you marvel at.
So trace your marveling and I'll find your following.
So if you're not a Christ follower, what are you marveling
at? Because that's probably what you
following. OK let's talk about 3 truths for
in the storm. Y'all ready?
Are y'all with me? If you're with me, let me hear
you say I'm in it. OK first thing, Jesus is the
king of the storm y'all. We we heard some of Psalm 107
earlier. Only Yahweh can calm a sea down.
Only the the creator himself has this kind of power y'all.
Nothing is more uncontrollable than the sea.
It represents utter chaos. It's intimidating.
Anybody who's smart is scared of the ocean.
Even the people who act like they ain't scared of the ocean
or scared of the ocean, deep down you know they are.
They just learned. They got the statistics in their
mind, like ain't nothing bad gonna happen to me, but they
scared yo I got. Little nibble from a Jelly.
I don't even know if nibble's the right word from a jellyfish.
One time that junk hurt so. Bad.
I don't play with the ocean. Hopefully you don't either.
But you can get in it, right? But yo, there's nothing more.
There's nothing more chaotic right than the sea.
And God can calm it down with a word.
Only God can do that. And I think what unsettles us a
little bit, if we're honest, is that Jesus put them in this.
And that's the great wrestle of this text, is that the God who's
in the boat is kind of over the boat.
The God who sends us into the storm and can calm it is in the
boat. But first we just have to
wrestle with he's over the storm.
He's over it. And we just got to ask
ourselves, do we believe that? Do we believe with a?
Word he could just chaos to nothing, just silent.
In the little kids version of this a video me and my kids
watch sometimes the the Jesus figure just goes hush hush hush.
My kids love that Hush, hush, hush and the, the, the winds
just cease, OK, Yo, we got to believe that this historically
happened. It's real.
It's not an idea, it's not a myth.
Jesus did that. He's the king of the storm.
He is declaring Yahweh power. He didn't say God do this.
He did it, OK? He is God.
Second thing, Jesus is the king in the storm.
God is over it, y'all, and he's in it y'all.
He's over it and he's in it y'all.
This is the incarnation. Can I tell you some good news,
y'all? Christianity is so compelling
because Jesus has got over it and got in it.
You need a God over it and you need a God in it.
If you don't have both, you're in trouble.
Can I just tell you, in the history of the world, all others
thought systems are struggling. They hold no water compared to
Christianity because they don't give you a God who's over it and
a God who's in it. It's just facts, yo.
We need creator creation distinction.
So let me be clear, the storm was not this is not Moana are
y'all with me? This is not on the water had
some personhood to it. OK, there's an idea that the
storm was chaotic. God was over it, but not in that
storm. This is not pantheism.
We need a God who is over creation, not all up in it and
mixing himself in it the way many religions of the world
think about it. That's not what we have.
We have a God over creation. Creation has some sort of
there's a sense in which it's broken.
We need a story that makes sense of that, of why it's so chaotic.
And that's what the Christian story gives us is that because
of the fall of Adam and Eve, chaos has erupted.
Creation is broken, OK, and God is over that.
Like we need a God who can be over that, who is not in the
creation but is over it and is authoring it in some kind of way
over the storm and can make it stop.
And we need a God who is in it. Yo, if you have a God over it
who is far and removed, what you have is fear, OK?
And you have a God you can't know, not an intelligible,
intimate relational religion with your God.
But if you have a God who's only in it, and it's all intimacy and
gushy and all those things, but not a God removed who is other,
who is so powerful and strong, that's also no good either
because he's in it with us, but he can't do anything about it.
We have a God, y'all, who's over it and in it, A God who sends us
in the storm and it blows our mind a little bit that he's over
it, OK, but he's also in it. You crave a God who's over the
storm and in the boat with you in the storm.
That's what you crave, Y'all. Have you ever felt like?
Walking with God is like having a parent that you think you know
more than you know that they know more.
But then when you demand that they give you the evidence, it's
like you just got to trust that they got it there.
Comes a point where. They just got it.
You get what I'm saying? That's kind of the the, the
little toddler and the adult at some level.
It's just they got it and I don't y'all, has life ever felt
that way to you? It's because life is relational
that way. And you have that father, you
have a. The world feels that way because
it is that way. We're living in a story that's
intelligible, where there is actual evil, OK, And it makes
sense because of the story that our father has given us in the
word OK, and he is solving that problem.
For us, through the cross, through his son.
And he's going to redeem and restore all things.
And you also crave a God who can handle you saying to him, but I
don't like this and it's blowing my mind and I don't understand
it, and I don't trust you. And you have a God who's in it
with you as well. Does that make sense?
A God you can wake up. Isn't that crazy?
God don't need to be woken up, but Amanda's that's the mystery
of the incarnation is as God he knows all things and but as man
he could be. Woken up like us?
He could sleep like us, isn't that?
Crazy. You need both.
That's what we have in the person of Jesus.
And I'm just telling you, no other thought system on earth
makes sense of why life is the way it is and how experientially
you want to be able to go to somebody with your problem and
frustration. And that's what you have.
God is accessible to you, OK? So what you crave is a God over
the storm and a God who will get in it with you.
OK, and when in the storm, y'all, what we have is both a
deliverer and a refuge. Somebody say deliverer, refuge
deliver is the idea that he can end the storm.
OK, He can. That's who Jesus is.
He shows us here. He can do that.
But also what the scriptures point to beyond a deliverer is a
refuge. It's the idea that this person
is a safe place in the storm. OK, so some of what I want to
present to you as we move forward here in a little bit is
the idea that once you marvel at who Jesus is, you trust Him on
if this is an instance of deliverance or refuge.
Are you with me? Some of us know some men the
hard way, that there's times where somebody comes to you and
tells you that they got a problem, they don't want you to
fix it, they want you to get in it with them.
They just want to know you're connecting with them in your
problem. So sometimes do we need and want
deliverance? Yes, sometimes.
Do we crave connection in the midst?
Yes. And don't we crave somebody who
knows when we need the one or the other?
Yes. And in the person of Jesus, that
is what you have. Third truth in the storm.
Shalom has come and is coming. Somebody say Shalom.
Y'all. Shalom means peace, y'all.
What Jesus gives here is a taste.
Just a peace, just a taste of Shalom.
All is well. Chaos gone.
He can do that. The cosmos itself, every
molecule obeys him. He's got that kind of
certification. He's on that level.
The cosmos itself obeys Jesus, and he brought a slice of peace
in his first coming, OK? He brought pictures of a future
world with no more ways breaking in on a boat.
There is a day coming where it feels like all that is wrong and
unsettling about life is gone, where your brain will no longer
do what it's doing now and it's falling.
This OK? There's a day coming where the
chaos is just totally gone and Jesus brought a slice in his
first coming y'all. When he comes back next time,
peace is all there is, y'all. We live in the in between.
That's just the reality of the time we live in.
That is why the Lord's Prayer every day, your Kingdom come,
your will be done. Part of what I'm trying to help
us see throughout the series is if you've adopted that because
Christ has saved you, that heaven has come, you've misread
the Bible, y'all. It's broken in, but it's still
coming. So we live in a broken place.
Storm still happen. He still this one.
There will be others. He didn't and won't and we don't
have the formula on what dictates what.
We just don't have it. We know how to live with him in
light of it. And part of how we live is your
Kingdom come, your will be done. So part of what we've been
trying to encourage ourselves on is childlike faith is not naive
in the name of of of honoring the Lord and not wanting to
dishonor him. We check our brains at the door
and we act happy, go lucky that life is not a storm sometimes,
OK, that's not going to help us. The other way we miss it is by
becoming cynics. OK, a cynic is that's all good
real God talk. But I don't actually believe any
of that. That sounds great, but it's not
my experience, not true. Childlike realism is in the
middle, where we go to God in the storm.
We still wake him up, which is what we're about to talk about,
OK? It's less of like, there's a
right way to do it. The point is, keep going to
Jesus, OK? Keep going to him and going in
and going to him. If you've checked out and you're
a cynic, God's inviting you back.
Or if you just think naive stuff, God's inviting you back
to like, actually real trust. Are you with me?
So let's talk about two insights on faith in the storm #1 growth.
And childlike faith is what Jesus is after.
In the Greek y'all, he says you of little faith.
It literally means you little face.
It's like a noun. It's like you y'all, y'all
little face. So it's not a condemning you of
little faith. It's a inviting you little face
y'all. Let me tell you something.
You're not going to shame yourself into spiritual growth
if you are stuck in your life with Christ.
The path forward is not yelling at yourself to trust God more.
Are you with me? That ain't that ain't what the
scriptures present us. Self condemnation rarely leads
to like life with Christ. OK, we don't shame ourselves.
Here's what I want to offer you is that I don't want you to
become an overthinker. So sometimes what we can do is
we can read a text like this. So were they wrong to like go to
Jesus, wake them up and say we're perishing?
And then we're like, OK, so if I'm in a storm, I'm not allowed
to go to God in desperation. And then we become calculators,
which is literally the opposite of childlike faith, right?
Kids don't calculate nothing, ever.
They just keep asking, OK, so the we don't want to run from
like childlike faith. Disciples are bad, so let's
become calculators. Is this a situation where I
should wake them up? What do you say, Pastor?
I'm be like, don't come to me like that.
I didn't say that. Be childlike faith.
OK. So what I would say is just go
to Jesus. Just go to Jesus.
If you feel frantic, go to Jesus.
I think behind his tone of you little face is an invitation
that the next time you come, just realize he's a little
different than you thought based on what you just saw.
That makes sense. So the next time you come,
hopefully there's a little more calm.
We're going to talk about what I think we can go to him as the
next time. But if you're frantic and
panicking, this is not a sermon telling you to stop going to
Jesus. OK, If you are panicking, go to
Jesus. All right?
If you are misassessing your situation, you don't condemn
yourself and not go to Jesus and then beat yourself up off in the
corner. Just keep going to Jesus.
Are you with me? That's always the answer #2
faith goes to Jesus for deliverance and refuge.
Y'all already alluded to this a little bit, but y'all, if you're
an adult, when a kid is panicking and comes to you,
guess what you don't do? You don't panic, OK?
You stay calm. You let them have their panic
moment and once they calm down, they help you recalibrate.
OK, this is what you needed, but you're not necessarily.
Loving them by either addressing the panic in the moment or
panicking with them somewhat. You got to wait them out.
Are you with me? You've got to enter the moment.
And the question becomes, do you need deliverance or refuge?
OK, Do you need the situation removed or do you need somebody
with you in it? Y'all, the good news of the
Bible is that God knows what you need.
He does. I don't know what you need.
I really don't. I know what I would give you
every time. I would give you deliverance
now, immediately. I'd relieve it as fast as
possible, as clean as possible, as quick as possible.
A few months ago we preached on Psalm 116, which is a
deliverance Psalm. And afterwards Greta was helping
us think through the concept of it's from a book called A
Praying Life, which we have a bunch of copies out there.
Y'all can go grab that. One of the best books I read on
prayer. It's the concept that when we
seek God for deliverance and we get a no when it's like get us
out of here and he doesn't, we interpret it as God is unloving
to us. And what she helped remind us of
from that book is the idea that a no in one area is just a
different yes than you think you need.
Are you with me? So like I have some friends who
have chronic pain. Maybe maybe you have chronic
pain. This is a good example.
Every single second of every single day they're in pain, some
of them massive pain. So you think somebody who knows
to ask save me, I'm perishing is a very normal way of life for
them and they're a hero to us to help model for us.
They're getting a no on deliverance from the pain.
What they're getting is a yes on ongoing sustaining refuge
provision. And what God is giving them is
ongoing neediness, right? So it's a different yes than
they're looking for. But what they all communicate as
they get further into trusting God is like, not that they like
that they have their chronic pain.
If you still gave them the out, they would take it.
But they love God for sustaining them in their pain.
Are you with me? So hear me, friends, I don't
know which you're going to get. I don't.
What I do know is we can trust Him.
Does that make sense? We trust who He is, whether it's
refuge or deliverance, whether it's ongoing dependence or it's
miraculous. OK, So childlike faith just
keeps going to Him and trust Him with whichever it's going to be.
And if you are not a follower of Jesus, I just want to introduce
to you the idea that you do have a refuge right now.
And if it's not the Lord, it will be something else because
the storm's coming either way. Are you with me?
Maybe you run to your thought life.
Maybe it's substances, maybe it's a shopping hobby, and it's
every time your life is hard, your refuge is escapism of some
kind. Y'all what?
What we're inviting you to is a realism that the Bible only can
give you because our God is over and in it we can go to him in
the midst of it. And if you don't come to him and
you get out the boat and you run from him, I understand.
But just know the storms still come and your refugeness is
going to go somewhere. Does that make sense?
You're invited to find it in the one who is safe.
OK, All right. Here's my invitation to you.
Become a marveling follower of Jesus.
Somebody say Marvel. Y'all Marvel.
Marvel. Marvel means mind blown, heart
gripped a little bit. Don't even know what I just saw.
Right. If you are not a follower of
Jesus and you've never marveled at Jesus, the question might be
why should I marvel at this guy? Y'all?
One thing I want you to consider is what the cost was for you to
get peace y'all. Again, I brought up the story of
Jonah. But for those of us who know the
story of Jonah, if you remember the, the sea is chaos, right?
And the, the, the sailors wake up Jonah and they draw lots of
like whose fault is this? And the lot falls on Jonah
because he was disobeying God and running from him.
And the idea of the story, Jonah says, look, man, the only way
that's going to stop is what if you throw me in the water?
It'll go calm. And they're like, Nah, we ain't
doing that. They throwing stuff off left and
right. They're throwing the barrels,
they're throwing the rum. Maybe that'll help, right?
And Jonah's like just do it man. And Jonah is not happy to be
thrown in. He's giving up on God.
He's sleep on God, not sleep in God.
Amen, somebody. And So what we get a picture of
in Jonah is that Jonah deserves to be thrown in and the sea goes
still, y'all, and it points to a greater Jonah.
So here Jesus says peace be still to the water, but there
will come a day. The reason Jesus can give peace
to us in our lives is because it was withheld from Him, because
He is the perfect, peaceful, a person who trusted the Father as
a son, a real human. He lived a perfect life and He
was thrown in into the waters of chaos so that we could be at
peace. The reason we can trust.
Him is because he gave up his life for us.
Y'all. The chastisement upon Him
brought us peace. Christ was killed so that we
could be at ease. We can trust Him and we know all
things, if we're in Christ, will work out in the end for us.
Because they didn't. For him.
Are you with me? That's the gospel.
We don't earn our peace. We don't earn our keep or our
refuge. It is a gift of God to those who
have trusted in Christ. Who is the one that was thrown
in for us to give us peace? He will give it to us because He
withheld it from His Son. Do you get that, y'all?
He can't not be good to you if you're in Christ.
Whatever's happening to you has to go through the Son of God.
That's a fact. It doesn't happen to you apart
from Him. If you're in Christ because of
what he did on the cross for you.
God will not hold out on you. That's the truth.
Whatever he's giving you is his best for you, as hard as it may
be for us to understand that. So if you've never marvelled at
Christ y'all, I just want you to see a God who dies for you.
Even when you think he's the worst and you doubt him, even
when you are a cynic, He died. For a cynic, that's what's
crazy. He died for the naive people.
He died for the cynics. He died for those who want to
get out the boat. He died for those who need a
million proofs over and over and over.
His blood purchases our staying in because He was thrown in for
us. So I just want you to hear if
you are not in Christ and you have doubted God's goodness,
know that He died for the doubting you.
He died for the you that struggles to understand it all.
He loves you and He wants you in the boat with Him.
Amen. Somebody.
OK, let me talk to the followers of Jesus for a minute.
Y'all, I want to invite us to marvel and move beyond
surviving, OK? That's what I want to invite us
to do. And here's what I would say is
the key to surviving that, y'all.
This is just an ongoing life with Jesus thing, OK?
I think curiosity is often the root and the fruit of marveling.
Notice they ask a question. What sort of man is this?
Even after they saw this, they did not have Jesus figured out,
as we know from reading the rest of the New Testament.
OK. I mean, even after Jesus is
resurrected, Peter is sort of a racist in Galatians 2.
Amen. Somebody so like these guys
don't. Oh, well, if I'd been there,
then I would totally trust him. No, you wouldn't.
OK, so don't think this is something you figure out.
What I'm trying to give to you is if you will get curious about
Jesus. Some things could change.
I want to show you a a painting from the 17th century.
Real quick. Couple things about this
painting. Number one, it is not a one to
one of the story. Jesus awake, not asleep #2 Jesus
is not white. Amen.
Somebody. OK, if you ever see a painting
with white Jesus, guess what? The dude who painted it was
white. OK, so I know, but it's a dope
painting, so check this out. This is called Jesus on the Sea
of Galilee by Rembrandt. OK.
So the way they teach you to study the painting is from the
top left to the bottom right. Now what you'll notice in the
top left is that brother thinks he's about to die and notice
where his eyes are. They're up.
He's panicked. He sees the elements.
OK. He does not see the man in the
bottom right of the painting. Now, I've also thought about the
higher you are in this situation, the more unstable
your situation. If you're at the bottom of the
boat, it feels like the lower you are to the ground, the less
turbulent. Amen.
Somebody that brother thinks he's about to get launched.
OK, now you'll notice at the bottom right, their
circumstances are the same. They're in the same boat.
But where are their eyes? They're on Jesus.
OK, so here's the point of the painting.
You can go home, Google it, look it up, just stare at it and just
pray, OK? And Rembrandt's looking right
back at you in the bottom middle.
If you never knew that a lot of them will put themselves in
their painting. How do you know?
Because they're staring at you and it's weird.
All right, That's the dude who made the painting.
OK, So check this out. You can you can take that down.
Jay. Thank you.
I want you when when you're in it.
And once your once your body is regulated and all the stuff, OK.
Now what if we just ask a question like Jesus, how on
earth are you asleep right now? What are you thinking about
right now? Are you still thinking about
that leper you just healed? Are you thinking about those
disciples that? Scribe, who just walked away, Is
your heart hurting? Are you excited about the demons
you're about to drive out of these two people and we get the
other side of the sea? Jesus, are you thinking about
us? Are you thinking about me?
Just get curious, how Jesus are you doing that?
What is it like to pull up a pillow next to him?
He's on the same boat as you. Somebody needs to hear that
Jesus is in the same life as you.
He's over it and He's in it y'all.
So part of the growth happens when we learn to relate to Him
outside of our panic for deliverance, y'all.
Jesus wants to relate to you in your pain and as who He is aside
from your pain. So I'm inviting you to consider
what would it look like to not just go to Him to get the storm
to go away. Even though that's not bad.
And if we say that, that's fine, keep going to Jesus.
But get curious about him. Get curious about who he is.
How did you sleep in that man? What was it like?
What were you thinking about? What drives you?
Y'all the goal is to go from the dude who is convinced he is so
about to die he can't even look at Jesus.
To being on the same boat and just amazed by Jesus.
And what you'll notice is for those who are full of the Spirit
walking with God a long time, when you sit down with them,
they don't tell you all the million ways they need God to
show up in their life. Doesn't mean they don't.
Have them y'all. They might have wayward kids,
they might have crazy stuff going on, but there's a
settledness because they're in the bottom right of the boat.
Are you with me? They're with the Lord in the
chaos. What if that's God's goal for
your life is for you to be with Him in the chaos?
It doesn't mean He wants the chaos for you, but He wants to
get in it with you. Amen.
Let's get. Curious.
I know where you need Jesus, and tell me about it.
Let's talk about it. Now let's just just get curious
about him. Who are you dude?
What sort of man is this? I'm a read a few lines that I'm
out. The Lord's our rock.
In him we hide A shelter in the storm.
Secure whatever al betide. A shelter in the storm.
The raging storms may round us. Beat a shelter in the storm.
We'll never leave our safe retreat.
A shelter in the time of storm. A rock divine.
A refuge deer. A shelter in the time of storm.
Be thou our helper ever near a shelter in the time of storm.
Mighty rock and a weary land, cooling shade on the burning
sand. Faithful guide for the Pilgrim
band. A shelter in the time of storm.
Let's pray y'all Our Father, we love you.
God, life with you. Even if we if we've been saved,
all the things it's hard. It doesn't make life easy or
confused. God, give us the grace to just
slow down. Give us the grace to go to you
and panic in the little faith that's good, and then invite us
to a deeper life, God, where we see you in the chaos.
God, you're over it, You're in it.
Help our minds to understand that.
I pray for my friends who don't know Christ.
God, I pray they would see that life with you on that boat is
better than any other life and that they need you and that you
have died to bring them on board.
We love you and we pray in Christ's name, Amen.