Matthew 8:23-34 | Kingdom Now: Chaos & Comfort

Well, happy Super Bowl Sunday, everybody.

Today we have the New England Patriots

versus the held off

small weak boo versus the Seattle Seahawks.

And then just for fun, let's just vote with our hands really quick.

I'd like you to clap for the team that you want to win today.

All right.

New England Patriots.

Couple of one of these.

But then on my buddy over, he's like getting a little caveman.

And then how about the Seahawks?

The Seahawks today.

Seahawks.

I think the Patriots got that one.

First service was all Seahawks.

They were like and then

well as always today I will be passionately

cheering on the Minnesota Vikings.

And as always they're not they're they've they're they didn't make it this.

We were almost there.

Not really.

As long as, the Packers aren't there, I have some friends

you're rooting for the Packers.

And definitely as long as the bears are not there.

We're good.

We're good to go.

Actually, I was rooting for the bears, man.

I was like, come on, Caleb. Paint those nails.

Hey. Anyway, Carl is in Idaho today.

He is,

with his family with, with a couple of his grandkids,

and they are enjoying time together.

And just before I get going, I just want to say it's such a privilege

to share a platform with a man who truly loves God and loves others,

and he works his booty off for this community.

And in this church.

And so I want to just pray for him really quick.

Father, thank you for Carl.

Thank you for his life and his,

his his calling to be here in this

Madera ranchos, at this church.

I pray that this morning I pray that you would give him rest.

I pray that you would equip him with vision.

Give him energy. This morning.

I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Last week our high school and middle school were at Hume Lake.

They were doing some cool things.

Anybody?

Were you there last week?

Who was there?

Was there anybody here that was there last week?

Couple of us. Okay, cool. Was it all right?

It was pretty good.

I talked to Michael, our youth pastor, and he said that where

there were many of our high school and middle school kids,

they got to experience Jesus in a fresh and new way.

And so praise God for that. That's awesome.

This weekend.

Are our, sixth grade and fifth grade.

And we had a few fourth graders.

They were up at Heartland Camp.

My daughter's up there.

Your daughter's up there?

My wife is up there.

And they're

probably just packing up the vans and about to head home right now, but,

I want to pray for those two groups as well, so. God.

Thank you for the opportunity for our our youth,

our younger ones, to learn about you in such a cool environment.

Thank you for Hume.

Like, thank you for heartland.

But God.

But God, hear me here.

May it not be just a weekend for these kids.

May you follow them down the hill.

May you join them in their houses,

their schools, and may that that faith

or that experience that they got to have, may it be stronger.

And would it lead into every area of their life.

I pray that in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Cool.

We've been in the middle of a series called Kingdom Now.

There's a crazy looking lion behind me looking through that K.

I think that's pretty sweet, but, before we jump in,

I want to define what this actually means,

because in a lot of ways, people believe that the kingdom of God

is is like one day when we die,

we're going to get to go to this heaven and the kingdom of God's there,

and there will be clouds and babies with harps.

But any time Jesus spoke

of the kingdom of heaven,

the kingdom of God, he spoke about it very differently.

See, Jesus wasn't creating a new religion.

He was announcing a new reality, a reality

that God has come to earth through Jesus.

The King is here

and that we

have an opportunity to experience this life.

This, this, this, a kingdom of God is available

to us right here, right now.

Kingdom now.

And so it's been with that lens

that we've been walking through the book of Matthew.

And we've been in Matthew for a while now.

But we've been reading it line by line, chapter by chapter,

and we have been looking for for areas of Jesus's life and what he did

that talks to us today.

And so with that said,

I want to jump in the big idea today

is, is this very simple phrase.

But before I jump in, I gotta show you this map.

It's kind of a there's there's a couple of maps, all of Matthew.

We've been all over the place. He was born in Bethlehem.

He came down here to Egypt, escaping some stuff.

And then he he goes up to Nazareth.

And that's pretty much where he was raised.

And then he goes into the wilderness, and then he comes back

and he's hanging out by the Sea of Galilee.

And this is where this is where he he begins to gain some followers.

He starts talking to some of the fishermen that are here.

And they they leave their nets and they follow him.

We just got done walking through the sermon

on the Mount, right near this, this lake.

He gives this talk and it's popularized as the sermon on the Mount.

It's the longest recorded talk of Jesus that we have in the scriptures.

And, and then he starts healing people, and he starts

confronting chaos all over this area, this region, anywhere he goes.

And there's a passage that anybody who came to him, they were healed.

He's casting demons out.

He's healing, people with leprosy.

He's he's doing crazy things.

And he is quickly becoming

one of the most followed and popular

rabbis in Israel.

He's gaining a lot of fans real quick.

But then there was this moment.

We got into it just briefly last week.

There was this sad scene.

There was this this,

scribe or some of your Bibles might call him a teacher of the law.

So he was like a priest, and he walks up to Jesus.

He's seeing all of these amazing miracles, and he walks up to Jesus.

Jesus is about to get on a boat, and he says, Jesus,

I will follow you wherever you go.

What a beautiful thing, right?

But then Jesus looks at him.

He says.

He says foxes have dens, birds have nests.

The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.

In other words, if you choose to follow

me, it's not going to be comfortable.

Now, the Bible doesn't say what happened,

doesn't say whether this guy said, sure, let me get on the boat with you or or not,

but but most scholars and and the way the, the,

the, the ancient, Jewish writing, what has been most

people would believe and assume

that he heard this.

And then he probably looked

and thought about his life

and he probably said, no, thank you.

And he probably scooted

way backwards back to his home

and to his plans.

Let me make this clear.

Jesus never marketed comfort ever.

He always said that there was a cost.

But so often many of us walk up to Jesus.

We walk to church.

We're like, man, I've lived a crazy life.

It's time for me to settle down.

All right? Jesus.

And I'm here with my pillow.

And you're going to make things better now.

It's going to be comfortable and, we we want coat.

We want couch. Jesus.

But often Jesus shows up as a coach.

He's holding the whistle.

See what I did there, Andy? See?

And he's a coach.

And he knows that

when the boys show up on the field, he's not making their bed in the dugout.

He says, let's go. We got to get better.

So our big idea today, just a very simple big idea.

Is this where the kingdom of God is

chaos, is confronted.

But your comfort will be challenged.

Chaos will be confronted anywhere Jesus went.

Chaos was stilled.

It was often uncomfortable.

Today we're going to look at two pretty popular scenes.

These narratives,

and as we read them, we're going

to be reading them with this idea that chaos will be confronted.

But watch the comfort levels.

Today we're going to be in Matthew chapter eight.

If you have a Bible or your smartphone or however

you want to join us, we're in chapter eight today.

And I invite you there to as you as we hear this,

as we watch this, hear these with with fresh ears today

and see them with fresh eyes.

Father, would you speak now?

Would you guide my brain,

our brains, as we hear your word

and any plans that I have?

Father, you have freedom to disrupt them.

May you speak to this group of people.

And may this group of people hear you,

even if it's different than first service.

This is a different group of people.

Be with us, God.

All right.

I'm going to start right here. Verse 23.

I have a little subtitle in mind.

I'm going to be reading out of the NIV today.

And my subtitle says Jesus Calms the Storm.

All right. Familiar passage.

Most of us have heard this before, but let's let's jump in.

Goes like this.

Then he, Jesus, got into the boat

and his disciples followed him.

Suddenly, a furious storm came on the lake

so that the waves swept over the boat.

But Jesus was sleeping.

The disciples went and woke him, saying, Lord, save us!

We're going to drown.

Imma pause right here.

I want to pause right here.

Give a little bit of context.

Jesus just got done talking to this guy who wants to follow him.

He gets onto the boats.

He's fully God and he's fully human, so he's exhausted.

He finds a little, finds a little cranny over there in the boat.

And he he's taking a little snooze while he's snoozing a furious storm.

Maybe some of your Bibles say a furious squall.

The English translators were trying to make it sound like this is a big deal.

Now, a little bit of, idea about the Sea of Galilee.

It's actually just a lake in Israel.

This is the Sea of Galilee.

Jesus would have gotten into it over there.

And he's planning to go over there, and they call it a sea.

But it's actually just a really, really big lake.

It's actually, like, eight miles wide

and about 13 miles long,

which doesn't mean much to a lot of us, but many of us have been to Miller ten,

which is right down the road here, which is like 30 minutes away.

And Milton Lake is, about the same wide or, sorry, long.

So it's about 13, 14 miles long

and it's, it's three miles wide.

So I was just kind of curious, kind of put them next to each other.

And then I did this just for, because I seen that on, like, stuff.

And I think it's cool.

And I'm like, okay, so Milton's a big lake.

Sea of Galilee is huge.

And then I want you to know that this it's it's at the bottom of this,

like, valley 700ft below sea level.

It's actually the lowest freshwater lake in the world.

And so when the winds mix, something weird happens.

And it actually creates these crazy storms.

Modern day storms record that there were

some ten foot waves happening just a few years ago.

And so so I want you to know

that this was no little drizzle.

I also, I think a lot of us know that some of the disciples

that Jesus recruited, some of the guys that were on the boat

with Jesus were professional fishermen.

They were seasoned in the seas and

it's not like they've never been in a boat before.

And it's not like they've never been in a storm before.

These guys know what to do when the storm happens.

Yet they were panicking

with Jesus right there.

Jesus was right there and they were panicking

and they were afraid with

this guy who just did miracles sitting right there and and I.

And it made me think of this, this moment.

Many of us who are parents like,

why don't we teach our kids how to swim or we take them somewhere?

I was thinking of this moment with my son,

Jack and he.

I remember he was getting a little confidence around the pool.

Right? Like, he like, he's all that, and.

And so one day I was holding them, and I just

dropped them, and I was in the water with them,

and I dropped them, and I let them sink a little bit.

And I remember he was trying to swim,

and then he started sinking.

And I remember his eyes looking through the water at me,

and I'm just staring at him.

His eyes were saying this,

are you going to do anything?

Like, are you going to let me drown here?

I let him struggle a little bit, and then I pulled them up

because I got to teach them to respect the water.

These disciples, they were afraid of the storm.

Sure.

They were also afraid that Jesus

wasn't going to do anything about it.

There's another, gospel that says it as a little bit.

It says, do you even care about us?

Chaos

will be confronted, but it's not always comfortable.

I'm gonna keep reading it.

Matthew, eight 2626 says he replied.

You of little faith, why are you so afraid?

Then he got up

and rebuked the winds and the waves,

and it was completely calm.

Now, if you were here last week,

you remember this centurion.

Do you remember what happened?

Jesus a Gentile.

He wasn't a disciple. He wasn't Jewish.

This centurion went to Jesus, and Jesus marveled

at his faith.

He's like, I've never seen such faith.

Is this such great faith?

And then potentially just a couple hours later,

his disciples, the ones that have devoted their life to him,

he's like,

and you guys have little faith in.

27 says.

The men were amazed.

It went from furious storm

squall, ten foot waves crashing over, went from furious storm

to completely calm.

The men were amazed and rightly so.

That must have been some crazy event.

And then they asked,

what kind of man is this?

Even the winds and the waves obey him.

And I gotta say this.

When Matthew is telling this,

when Matthew is writing this, he is writing to an audience.

An ancient Israelite audience

that believe nobody talks to the weather.

Nothing can change

the wind or the rain or the clouds except a god.

The Greeks had Zeus, the god of thunder and the clouds.

And so when Matthew's writing this, he's he's actually

making a theological claim.

This guy,

this man that you're asking, who is he?

Oh, he's got

even the wind and the waves obey him.

And he asks them a simple question.

Why are you so afraid?

I have a true statement up here.

It's a little bit of a tongue twister.

So, But take a moment and

read that for a second.

It says the presence of chaos

does not mean the absence of Jesus.

And then it says the presence of Jesus does not mean

the absence of storms.

Can I break that down for a second?

When you're walking through life

and chaos is happening all around you.

Maybe it's financial or,

maybe it has to do with your marriage or your kids.

Or maybe your work.

When chaos is going, it doesn't mean that Jesus isn't there.

And even the disciples are like, why are you?

Why are you going to save us?

It is human nature to question if Jesus is even there

walking through life.

And oh man, that didn't go according to how I thought,

well, Jesus, where do you even care about me? Jesus?

There must.

God must not exist.

You know, we jump so quickly to these things.

I'm a little embarrassed to say this.

Steve, I'm a little embarrassed.

But in between high school and college, I got to go play on this team.

And we traveled baseball. We traveled all over.

And I remember we went to Hawaii, and.

And I went, in this one tournament, and I went, oh, for 20 over

20 means no hits out of 20 at bats.

And I and and out of that 20, I had 18 strikeouts.

I mean, that's not good.

And I remember as a little embarrassing, but I remember thinking, God, I'm

trying to be a good guy, man.

My teammates are over here messing around all night.

They're doing stuff that I think isn't good.

And here I am. I'm trying to be a good guy.

Are you in there?

I remember thinking that.

This is a true statement here.

He says, why are you so afraid?

Jesus never marketed comfort right?

At some point he says, if you choose to follow me,

you have to deny yourself and bear your cross littered throughout.

Littered through the Bible are stories of people who loved God,

who sought God out, who did everything they could.

And they went through it.

Can you imagine Adam and Eve

having to watch their son murder his brother

or Noah

building this crazy thing?

Everyone's talking about him. He.

That boy had no friends.

Can you imagine King David being anointed king

and then having to run for his life for years?

Daniel.

All he did was pray. He got thrown into a,

lion's den.

Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Young teenage girl,

had to deal with rumors.

People talking about her.

Her husband didn't know what to believe.

And then she's riding a donkey with a big old belly.

That's chaos.

John the Baptist did his best, but got his head cut off.

Paul, one of the the most,

the most effective missionaries that we know, spent

most of his life following Jesus in prison.

Jesus never said, hey, follow me and make sure you bring your pillow

because it's going to be nice and cozy.

No, he said,

foxes have dens.

Birds have nests.

Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.

This isn't going to be comfortable.

Chaos is typically not a sign that God has left you.

It's typically where God meets you.

I already shared the baseball story, but I'll share this too.

I didn't share this in the first service.

It was after that season.

It was my first couple of years of junior college.

I was playing junior college, small school a few hours away.

The first time living outside my house.

And and it was chaos.

He's living with some dudes that,

just crazy

and things, you know?

And some of you guys know,

I'm talking about the things I got to experience and witness, and.

And I'm over here like,

where's my mom?

But I remember thinking, because I had known Jesus,

I was a fan, but I remember thinking and and and praying

earnestly the first time in my life.

And it was in the chaos.

I got to

experience Jesus's love and his power

and his authority over my life in a way that I had never experienced.

And it was in that chaos.

My life changed.

But it was uncomfortable.

I'm gonna keep going

or else I'll cry.

28 mine has a subtitle says

Demon or Jesus Restores two demon possessed man

when he arrived.

When Jesus arrived on the other side

in the region of the Gathering's,

two demon possessed men

coming from the tombs met him.

They were so violent that

no one could pass that way.

What do you want with a Son of God?

They shouted.

Have you come here to torture us before the appointed

time?

Verse 30 says, some distance from them

there was a large herd of pigs, and it was feeding.

And the demons begged Jesus,

if you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs.

Typically in

our world, there's two types of chaos, right?

There's this external chaos.

There's like financial stuff.

Marriage. There's, you know, my job's crumbling.

I, you know, I don't know purpose of my life.

There's chaos going on.

Sometimes it's your marriage, sometimes it's.

And then there's this internal chaos.

The internal chaos I'm talking about is here

that oftentimes no one sees.

But it's a rampant.

And being an education and being working in a

as elementary school, it it's insane

to see these kids

kindergarten first grade, third grade sick

going through things mentally

that I can't imagine.

There's external and then there's internal chaos.

And Matthew goes from a storm, a very external thing.

And then he moves to an internal chaos.

A little bit of context

there on the other side of the lake and the gatherings.

This is gentile territory

in ancient, Israel.

These were seen as unclean.

These are unclean people in an unclean land.

They're near a cemetery with dead people,

tombs.

Dead people were dead.

Things were unclean to ancient Jews.

And then there's some pigs right over there.

And we know, thank Lord Jesus, that we can have bacon now.

But pigs were unclean to the Israelites.

What Matthew was doing is he's stacking the deck with unclean things to

to paint this picture, that everything about this moment was chaos.

And disorder.

And then there's these two guys.

We don't know these guys.

We don't know who they were.

They they were just some guys.

They may have been in the community.

They may have went to school.

They may have learned they have parents.

Most likely they may have played in the Little League down the street.

But then all of a sudden they had some internal chaos that couldn't be controlled.

These demons

inside them, that that possessed them.

And it was they were so violent that you couldn't even pass by them

because they'd probably chase you or something.

And they're living in the tombs and they come out and they say, Jesus,

Son of God,

what are you doing?

Did you come here to torture us?

It's interesting.

Right?

A few hours earlier,

the disciples,

the people who claim to be.

I'm following you. Jesus.

They were the ones asking, who is this guy?

Who is the man who comes the wind in the waves?

And then these demons, they recognize him

as the Son of God.

Isn't it interesting that sometimes hell

has better theology

than us humans?

Then he goes like this.

Verse 32,

he said to them,

go. So they came out

and they went into the pigs.

And the whole herd

rushed down a steep bank into the lake, and they died

in the water that most of it's so wild to see

those tending the pigs.

They ran off.

I don't blame them. And if it's wild.

And they went into the town and they reported all of this,

including what happened to the demon possessed men.

Then the whole town went out to meet

Jesus to say thank you.

No, the whole town

went out to meet Jesus.

And when they saw him, they pleaded with him

to leave their region.

They begged him to leave.

That word pleaded, is this Greek word para kaleo?

And it's actually the same exact word.

Moments earlier, the demons used when they begged Jesus to send them into the pigs.

They begged him to leave.

Because that was a lot of pigs.

Dave and I were talking the other day and upwards to about 2000 pigs.

Right?

That's a lot of pigs,

How are they going to make their breakfast burritos?

But their economy. Jesus.

He disrupted their economy.

This was their finances.

This was their wellbeing.

This is how their town survived.

I don't care about those two men.

We had them under control. They were living in the tombs.

It was under control of Jesus.

But why do you have to go do that?

Because Jesus, where the kingdom of God

is, he will confront chaos

and he will challenge comfort.

And this was uncomfortable.

I have another statement right here

and it goes like this too often

we choose comfortable chaos

over costly transformation.

Jesus, Jesus I'm ready.

Come into my life.

Just don't touch my my schedule I got plans.

Jesus take over me.

Except my checkbook. My checkbook is mine.

You got my books.

I need that money.

Got to

Jesus.

Work on my work on my kids, man.

But I gotta catch this game real quick.

God, I want a different life.

Struggling.

But don't make it hard on me.

God, I need a better life. But.

But make sure it good.

Too often we choose comfortable normals.

Over costly transformation.

I think it's wild, man.

Jesus literally says one word go and the demons flee.

There's no sweat.

There's no like, cartoon like battle.

There's no ritual.

Or he's holding the book and it nothing like these movies.

He literally says, go.

Because when we're the kingdom of God, it confronts chaos.

And chaos listens.

Listen to this.

There's nothing in this world or outside this world

that scares us.

None of that scares Jesus.

But it was uncomfortable for these people.

To, James book of James, there's this passage.

It says, consider it pure joy

when you go through troubles.

Jesus later says, and I, we already said this.

Deny yourself.

If you follow me, deny yourself.

If you choose your life, you will lose it.

But if you choose me, you will gain it.

The big idea was simple.

It's wherever the kingdom of God is,

chaos will be confronted

and comfort is challenged.

And having comfort challenged

is not always a bad thing.

I, my friend, is over there.

She's, occupational therapist or something.

Physical therapist.

We all know if you've gone through any type of injury,

if you want to get better, it takes a little bit of pain.

Those stretching.

Someone once said nothing good in life

isn't worth working for.

In between services, I was talking to some people and they're like, hey,

but then.

But then the the storm was calm and then it was comfortable.

I was like, absolutely.

There are times of comfort in our lives and praise God,

that is not constantly a storm.

But Jesus never promised a life of comfort.

In John

the book of John, Jesus says

this little phrase that I just kind of want to like land on

because I think it's powerful, he says.

In this world, there will be trouble.

But take heart.

For I have overcome the world.

God has plans for you.

Plans that are great.

But it's not couched.

Jesus, it's Coach Jesus

because he says, I love you,

but I love you way too much to leave you the way you are.

And it's going to take a little bit

to get there.

Chapter six A couple of weeks ago,

the disciples, they walked up to Jesus and they said,

Lord, teach us how to pray, right?

And Jesus says, okay. Yeah.

All right. Well, have a seat. Here's how you pray.

Something like that.

He says something like Our father who is in heaven,

holy is your name.

And then he says this line,

May your kingdom come,

may your will be done

in earth as it is in heaven.

And I have to say, that is a very dangerous prayer.

I don't know where you're at today.

I don't know what kind of chaos is going around,

around your life or in your life, or in your head, or in your

whatever.

But I do know this

when you pray that prayer,

that chaos is going to be confronted.

But it's not going to be comfortable

in a room this size.

I know that there are struggling parents.

There are some marriages that that are tough.

I know in a room this big that there is

some financial stuff going on.

And I definitely know that there is

some mental health going on.

But where the kingdom of God is,

that chaos will be confronted.

It's not going to be comfortable though.

I want to invite you as we as we wrap up.

Jeff, you can come on up here.

We're going to close with the song.

It's like kind of an older hymn.

It's called the mighty, Mighty Fortress.

A mighty fortress is our God.

But I want to invite you into

a very scary and dangerous prayer.

I'm actually

calling these, like, three Kingdom prayers.

And in a moment, I'm going to give you an opportunity

to think about.

Is this you?

And, hey, I'm up.

It's okay if it's not.

I got to be straight up. From the beginning.

It is okay if you're not ready to make a scary prayer.

And don't just think because we're at church or this.

Is that what happens at the end of a teaching? We.

We sing a song, we stand up, we do the thing.

I want to challenge you that if you're not truly ready

to pray this prayer, may your kingdom come,

then don't pray it.

Please don't. But if you are.

Then I'm in a moment.

I'm going to give you an opportunity

to actually stand up and say, that's my prayer.

And then I'm actually going to pray that over you.

I'm also going to pray this,

that Jesus would calm the chaos around you,

that Jesus would calm the chaos within you.

And then I'm going to pray this

Jesus when my comfort is challenged.

Jesus, when your comfort is challenged, would you help them?

Would you be with them?

A bunch of kids who went to camp this weekend,

last weekend, and many of them were like, yeah,

Jesus, I'm following you.

And then the moment they got back to reality,

some of them were like, it's a little

a little awkward, a little weird.

I mean, just go back to my normal.

And many of us have done that.

And so I'm going to invite you

if this is your prayer and stand up.

And I'd like to know who I'm praying for right now

if this is yours.

And if it's not, don't worry about it.

And. Jesus.

You see, the people in this room

and you see their willing hearts that are praying

that your kingdom would come into their life.

And, Lord, I join them in that prayer.

And we pray that you would immediately,

immediately bring your kingdom.

Over marriages and families and work situation.

We pray that your Kingdom would come on this earth

in these lives as it is in heaven right now.

Kingdom now, now, like right now.

But then, Lord, I pray that over

these people standing, I pray that you would calm the chaos,

the chaos

around them, the chaos inside them.

I pray, father, that you would calm it,

and I pray that you would do it quickly

and even with one word, and make it even supernatural.

We pray that Lord over these people.

Pray for mental health.

Right now. I pray that we would think clearly.

Think of ourselves the way you think about us.

Would you confront it right now?

And then, Lord,

when life gets a little uncomfortable.

Because we know it will.

Oh, God, I pray this.

I declare this over this room that you would walk

alongside us.

That we would know you're there and that we would trust you.