Matthew 8:23-27 | "Fear on the Lake"

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Through the storm, he is Lord of all.

Do you believe that?

Or maybe it's better to ask, do you live that?

Do you believe that and do you live that?

I love to be in my mountains.

Normally, this time of year, I would be getting ready to spend a week in my Montana mountains, high up in the mountains, away from people, communing with fish.

Not able to do that this year.

But one of the things that I love about being high up in the mountains is thunderstorms.

To hear the thunder echo across the canyon walls is unlike anything else, and it feels like you're right next to it.

That's great unless it's the middle of the night.

A few weeks ago, we had one of our major storms, and I was awakened early in the morning, stunned, really.

No other way to describe it.

I had been shocked out of sleep by this clap of thunder.

It sounded like it originated in the attic right above our bedroom.

It was that loud.

It was that close.

It was about 4:30 in the morning.

I didn't get much sleep the rest of the night.

Has that ever happened to you?

Or something, something like that?

Now, does that say something about me?

It's a serious question.

Does that say something about me?

Someone might contend that I'm a light sleeper.

Someone who can sleep through any kind of storm might say that I'm a light sleeper.

So they would say, yes, that that means something about me.

Someone else might say, no, it means something about the storm.

It means that the storm was very strong, very powerful.

But since I was the one that experienced it, I'll tell you what it says.

I would say it says something far more about the lightning that I didn't see than anything else.

I'd like you to take your Bible with me and turn to Matthew chapter 8.

Matthew 8 · chapter mention

Matthew chapter 8.

Matthew 8 · chapter mention

Familiar passage to most of you, maybe to all of you.

Passage that describes being on the Sea of Galilee, the large lake that exists in Israel in the midst of a storm.

We're going to spend two Sundays in this passage because I can't get through everything today.

Today I want you to see one thing, just one truth.

The truth that Matthew intends to communicate from this passage.

But when we focus on that one truth that Matthew wants us to see, it makes it a little difficult to kind of explore other potential areas of application.

So I want to do that next week.

I just want you to see what Matthew wants us to see and then to be impressed upon your heart by that truth.

Matthew chapter 8, beginning in verse 23, it says, When he, that is, when Jesus got in the boat, his disciples followed him.

Matthew 8 · chapter mention

And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves.

But he, Jesus, was asleep.

And the disciples went and woke him, saying, Save us, literally, save, Lord.

We are perishing.

And he said to them, Why are you afraid?

O you of little faith?

And then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.

And the men marveled, saying, What sort of man is this that even the wind and the seas obey him?

Amen.

I want you to notice a few things here.

First, notice how Matthew describes the disciples.

He talks about them in verse 23.

Normally, Jesus gets into the boat and his disciples, his mathate, his followers, get in the boat with him.

That is a very normal pattern.

As the Gospels describe those who follow Jesus, it would refer to them as disciples.

But by the end of this story, how does Matthew refer to them in verse 27?

As men.

No longer disciples does he refer to them, but as men.

Why does he do that?

Why does Matthew not answer the question?

At the end of verse 27, what sort of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey him?

There's no answer.

Why?

On what must have been an incredibly dark night, out in the middle of a large body of water, surrounded by the howl of the wind, and the sound of the waves crashing over the sides of their boat, sloshing inside of the boat potentially, maybe even reverberating with the shock of thunder, these disciples are experiencing a fearful event in the midst of the night.

And some might argue that this story is all about our faith.

That it's all about the disciples' faith.

Some might argue differently, saying that, no, this is a story, maybe not even a real story, some would say, telling us about the difficulties of life, that the storms of life.

But the truth is very different.

The truth is that this account says far more about Jesus than it does anything else.

Jesus used this fearful situation in the middle of the night, in the midst of the storm on the lake, to reveal something about himself.

Something that these disciples apparently had difficulty grasping.

Here's the truth.

Jesus possesses authority that controls all of creation.

Now that may not seem like a big deal.

Hopefully, by the time we're done, that will seem like a very big deal to you.

Let's talk a little bit about the context.

You need to know something about your Bibles.

It's not just a collection of nice stories remembered by the disciples, kind of slapped together.

It's not just some memories that are put together in some haphazard way.

These are stories, these are accounts about the life of Christ that are tied together in unique ways to communicate specific truth.

And there are threads, unifying threads that run through the passages of Scripture that tie everything together.

And we are helped when we look for those unifying threads and seek to know how does how does this all fit together?

So let me show you what's going on here.

If you look back at chapter 7, chapter 7 and verse 28.

It says, when Jesus had finished these sayings, you remember this is after the Sermon on the Mount, right?

So he's been teaching the people all day long.

And after he finishes, the crowds are astonished at his teaching.

Why were they astonished?

Because he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.

So they're astounded at Jesus' teaching, right?

And it comes across to them as somebody who has some oomph behind what they say.

There's some power, there's some strength, there's some authority behind it.

Now flip over to chapter 9.

Chapter 9 and verse 8.

This is at the end of another healing, and the crowds saw the healing in chapter 9, verse 8.

And they were afraid and they glorified God who had given such authority to men.

There are bookends here.

There are bookends, and everything between those bookends tells us something about the authority of the person of Jesus Christ.

Everything in between says something about the authority, and if we don't get that, then we're missing the point that the author intended to communicate to us.

That the thread that ties all of these accounts together between these two sections is the authority of Christ.

So we must interpret it as an expression of the authority of Jesus, the Son of Man.

Every account, every little minor account in between tells us something about the authority of the Lord Jesus.

So if we go back to the beginning of chapter 8, that tells us that the account about the healing of the leper reveals to us Jesus' authority over the judgment of God and the human body.

If you don't remember that, you'll have to go back and listen to Anton's sermon on that passage, which I recommend you doing.

After that was the healing of the centurion servant, revealing Christ's authority over space and distance.

Remember, he didn't even go to the servant, to the centurion's house.

He healed him at a distance.

The next was the healing of Peter's mother-in-law, where we see the greatness of his authority.

He heals her without a word.

He wasn't even told that she was sick or what was wrong with her.

He goes in, she's lying down, and he touches her and heals her.

Last time we saw the account of two men seeking to follow Jesus, where Jesus reveals his authority over culture.

And where he has the authority to define what it means to be a disciple of Christ.

There, Jesus reveals his authority over the entire spirit world.

And then in chapter 9, Jesus reveals his authority to forgive sin.

All throughout we see who Jesus is and what kind of authority he possesses.

And now, as we follow Jesus and the disciples to the Sea of Galilee, also called Lake Kinnereth, we see the authority of Christ over all of creation.

And at the end, there's no answer to the question.

But the next verse, verse 28, begins with them reaching shore.

It sort of expresses an unknown period of time.

Jesus stills the storm while they're out in the middle of the lake, and then the very next thing is they're at the shore.

Well, what happened in between?

What took place between the stilling of the sea and reaching the shore?

I can only imagine that those disciples were sitting in silence wondering, what have we just experienced?

What have we just seen?

Who is this guy with us in the boat?

What kind of human being can rebuke the wind and the waves and instantly calm them into a sea of glass?

What's left unsaid is, if that's who Jesus is, then what does that mean for me?

If that's the guy I follow, if Jesus is the one that I follow, if he is my Lord and I am his disciples, what does it mean that he has authority over the creation in which I live?

But the question is left unanswered in the moment for those disciples.

When Matthew wrote his gospel and it was read in churches for the first time, most people knew the answer to the question.

When Matthew wrote this book and it was distributed and read amongst the churches, the Christians knew the answer.

They knew that Jesus is the Son of Man.

That He is God the Son, the Christ who took on flesh to live among us and die for us.

This is no mere man.

This is the God man, and he is the sovereign over all things, possessing all authority over all of creation.

You know this.

So follow along with me as we climb into the boat.

Let's think about this in terms of the men on the boat, the storm on the sea, the fear in the men, and the authority that we see in Jesus.

Let's begin with the men on the boat.

Looks like those are not in order this morning.

Alright, the men on the boat.

When he got into the boat, his disciples followed him.

There was a storm.

The boat was being swamped, but Jesus was asleep.

And they went and woke him, saying, Save us.

Assuming that these were at least some of the twelve disciples.

Matthew's already told us of the calling of Peter and Andrew earlier in the gospel.

He's already told us that James and John have been called to follow Jesus.

Matthew apparently wasn't there because Matthew is called in chapter 9, verse 9.

So Matthew is relating something that happened and he wasn't there.

At least that's what seems to be the case.

But if at least Peter and Andrew and James and John are there, maybe others, at least some of the disciples on the boat were very experienced on the water.

If Peter and Andrew and James and John were here, their livelihood was on the water.

They'd grown up in the family fishing business.

They knew all of the details.

They surely knew the trends of the water on the lake.

They knew the kinds of weather that could come in in an instant.

They knew how to handle boats on calm waters.

They knew how to handle boats in rough waters.

They knew how to get home when there were storms.

Surely they knew how to be safe on the water.

My friend, coming to Christ does not mean that there will be no storms in your life.

Following Jesus does not mean that all you need to do is follow the yellow brick road all the way home.

There's some strands of Christianity that like to tell you that, but it's simply not true.

It's quite the opposite.

What did Jesus say to would-be followers?

Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests.

I don't have anywhere.

That's why he's sleeping in a boat.

When God created everything that is, he placed man in a position of rulership over the earth.

But Adam rejected God's plan and God's provision and sort of relinquished his rulership.

And now the ruler is the prince of the power of the air, Satan himself.

And as a result, everything around us in our creation, in the world in which we live, is infected to the core with sin.

And sin has its effect on everything.

Everything from human bodies to storms at sea.

Coming to Christ doesn't remove you from the sin-cursed world.

Just like those experienced fishermen on that night, you and I have to face the storms of life.

Your storms may be different than mine.

They may be completely unique.

But there's a staggering truth here.

Do you remember this?

He'd been healing people all evening at Peter's mother's house, or at Peter's house, where his mother-in-law was healed.

Been healing all day long, and he says, There's a crowd here, let's go down, and he gave orders to go down to the boat and to the other side.

Did Jesus know what he was doing?

Yes.

You don't have to think about that.

Yes.

Just nod and I'll know that you're with me.

Did Jesus know what he was doing?

Absolutely, of course he did.

He not only had a purpose for every action in his ministry, but he also had a purpose for the growth and the maturation and the testing of his disciples as well.

Jesus gave orders for his disciples to get in a boat when he knew there was a storm coming.

Jesus knew that he would be taking those disciples through a storm that would exceed anything that they had ever experienced in life.

Does God give you more than you can handle?

Yes.

Please help me dispel that truth that God doesn't give you more than you can handle.

God will give you more than you can handle.

And he will do that so that you can understand and come to grips with the reality that you can't do it.

Only He can, and He gives you the strength to go through it.

He gave disciples and fishermen more than they could handle, and He will do the same for you, my friend.

Consider then the storm on the sea.

The storm on the sea.

What does Matthew tell us about this storm?

It says there was a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves.

Storm on the sea.

Notice how Matthew says it.

And behold, behold, that there's there's a suddenness to the storm.

They're going along in the middle of the night.

They probably have a sail up on the boat, and they're using some oars as well.

They're moving along gently across the lake to get, oh, about six or eight miles across the lake.

And then all of a sudden, there is this storm.

You need to know something about geography, and I know you came this morning to learn geography, but it's important, okay?

Thank you.

The Sea of Galilee sits just under, I'm sorry, just over 600 feet below sea level.

The Sea of Galilee is about 600 feet below sea level.

So it sits lower in elevation than the Mediterranean Sea just to the west of it.

To the north is Mount Hermon that rises 9,200 feet above sea level.

And surrounding the Sea of Galilee are these hills and And the land rises up out of the valley of the lake, and then there are great ravines carved into the hillsides and the cliffs around the lake.

And so winds come from the north over the top of Mount Hermon and they come down into this valley.

Or they come from the Mediterranean Sea to the west and they come down those ravines and they hit the lake.

It's like one thing smashing into another.

Those winds, as they come down, down into the depths of the valley, they increase in strength.

And those storms and those winds will cause the lake to turn into the sort of a churning cauldron of death.

And then you add to that the unexpectedness of storms.

Makes these storms on this lake even more dangerous.

That's why Matthew says it was a great storm, a mega seismic.

Literally a great shaking.

Seismos, you understand, that comes from seismology, where it refers mostly to earthquakes, even in the Bible.

So it's it as if God suddenly gave this lake a great shaking.

While Jesus and the disciples were on a boat in the middle of it.

Mark's account in Mark chapter 4 tells us that the boat is already filling with water.

Mark 4 · chapter mention

The word that Matthew uses here to say that the waves were swamping the boat, it indicates that the wind-driven waves were so high that they were covering the boat.

They were crashing down over the sides of the boat into the interior of the boat.

Jesus is sleeping while his feet are getting wet.

Not because he's dangling over the side.

Because water's crashing in.

Covered in mud, and it was dug out and restored as much as could be.

And it very well could be representative of the kind of boat used by Jesus and the disciples.

And here you have a picture of that kind of boat.

The boat that was recovered was 26 feet 11 inches long.

It was 7 feet 8.5 inches wide and a little over 4 feet deep.

In reality, not very large at all.

If we imagine that there are 11 disciples here, minus Matthew, plus Jesus, they would have been very, very crowded in the boat.

So maybe they were in a boat a little bit larger, we don't know.

Maybe there were fewer disciples.

Regardless, a small, narrow boat like this would have been totally at the mercy of the wind and the waves.

I've been out on Lake Michigan off the coast of Wisconsin in a motorboat, a little smaller than this kind of boat, with moderate winds and about two foot waves on the lake.

And that little boat with a gas-powered motor struggled against the waves.

Now imagine a violent storm.

A violent storm that feels as though it's not just the wind and the waves, but the whole earth is shaking.

A storm that tests everything in you.

What happens to you?

What happens to the disciples is great fear.

Let's look then at the fear in the men.

They cried out, Why are you afraid?

I'm sorry, save us, Lord.

We are perishing.

And he said to them, Why are you afraid?

Jesus was exhausted, right?

He'd had a long day.

One of the gospel records even indicates that Jesus had been going almost all night and that this was probably very early in the morning, before light at dawn.

Jesus was simply exhausted.

And I'm sure that the disciples were tired as well.

We don't know if they'd had a chance to sleep.

In fact, they were doing everything in their power to keep themselves alive in the midst of the storm.

Maybe they were too afraid to sleep.

They were fighting the storm.

But the storm got the better of these disciples.

And in some way, the end had come.

There was nothing left for them to do.

Maybe they finally realized they couldn't bail water fast enough.

Maybe the wind had shredded their sail.

We're not told those details.

But they could no longer fight the wind and the waves.

It was as if God Himself was hurling this storm upon them from the heavens.

And when the Lord sends you into the storm, there's no place to run.

So at the end of themselves, they they cry out to Jesus, Lord, save us.

You know, sometimes God brings us to the end of our human efforts in order to show us that we can do nothing without Him.

Sometimes we are Sometimes we are even ordered into the storm.

Sometimes Jesus says, get in the boat.

You have no idea what you're heading into, but get in the boat.

And then that storm measures our strength.

And it reveals to us that we don't have much strength.

And so then it begins to measure our faith.

The only thing left when the storm has stripped away all of our human strength is the measure of whatever faith we possess in our God.

Have you been there?

If you have, then you know, you know what I'm talking about.

If you haven't, get ready.

The storm will come.

The storm will come.

And we begin then to see the measure of our faith when all we can do is trust.

When that's all that's left for us is to trust God and keep going on in the storm, we then know how great our faith is.

And we see then the measure of the disciples' faith.

There were no more solutions to their problem.

There was no other direction to turn except to Jesus.

You know, so often we we tend to get caught up in doing things our way.

You know, we we we figure out a way to get through our problem, or we we work our way through our problem solving, and we have a plan set in place.

We're fighting the storm, we're surviving on our own, and then we come to the point where we realize, oh yeah, the Lord's in the boat.

Wake him up.

God loves it when his people call out to him.

If you are a disciple of the Lord Jesus, never be afraid to call out to him.

The Psalms are full of examples of God's children crying out to him for help.

God loves to hear cries for salvation.

Hear it's it's physical salvation.

Probably as a picture of crying out ultimately for spiritual salvation.

But God also loves to see faith in action.

What were these disciples thinking?

What were they thinking?

Were they thinking?

Were they just acting?

Were they acting on instinct?

If they had some time to just think, maybe maybe they would think about Jesus.

Would the storm actually drown the Lord Jesus?

Would that happen?

What does it say about our belief in Jesus?

See, in this moment, they were failing to let their belief about Jesus rule their circumstances.

If they had, they would have been as calm as Jesus.

Were they really listening in the previous section when Jesus told the two disciples, would be disciples, I am the Son of Man?

If he is the Son of Man, then the storm's not going to rule Jesus.

Jesus' first response to them is, Why are you afraid?

O you of little faith.

This is fascinating because the word afraid here means more along the lines of cowardly or timid.

What a statement.

Why are you acting like cowards?

He's calling seasoned fishermen and sailors timid and cowardly.

After all that they had done to save the boat, to save themselves, and to save Jesus, God Himself, Jesus has the gall to call them cowardly.

Really?

But that's the wrong way to think.

That's the wrong type of questioning.

The better question is why wasn't Jesus cowardly?

Why was Jesus not afraid of the storm?

Why was Jesus not afraid of death by drowning?

Why was Jesus not afraid of the waves crashing over the side of the boat and soaking him?

Why was Jesus so calm?

Was he just that exhausted?

You see, in this kind of storm, any response other than fear is simply not normal.

Fear is the expected response.

In fact, Mark tells us in his gospel that the disciples were simply baffled by Jesus.

They said, Teacher, don't you even care that we're perishing?

To them it seemed as though Jesus, because he wasn't baling water along with them, just didn't care.

But according to Jesus, see, Jesus is the real interpreter of this situation.

Jesus says, No, your issue is you have little faith.

Little faith.

It's a single compound word in the original language, and it's only used in the Bible.

You won't find it in any other Greek literature of the time.

And so, in the Bible, it's only found in Matthew and Luke.

Five times in Matthew and once in Luke.

The first time is one we've already encountered.

It's Matthew chapter 6 and verse 30.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

I know you remember it.

Jesus said, If God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is used for your cooking fuel, will he not much more clothe you?

O you of little faith?

See, the issue here is not so much no faith.

It's not that there was no faith at all.

It was that the faith that was there was small and needed to be greater.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught that God Himself will take care of his own.

All you have to do is look at creation to see that God will do what is needed for his own.

There's no need to worry, there's no need to be anxious about your care, just trust in your great caring God.

But apparently, in this moment, the disciples had forgotten all about trusting in their heavenly Father to care for them more than the sparrows and the flowers of the field.

Apparently, here in the moment, they aren't remembering to trust in Him because of the storm.

They weren't remembering that the Father cares for them even in the storm.

See, the storm distracts us.

The storm distracts us from who's in the boat with us.

And it's only when we've been brought to the end of ourselves that we most often remember, oh yeah, Jesus is here.

Here are the disciples who just a few hours earlier had heard the Sermon on the Mount.

They'd witnessed the healing of the leper.

They'd witnessed the healing of the centurion servant and Peter's mother-in-law.

Didn't they understand the power of Jesus?

Beloved, the one who trusts in Christ alone has no reason to fear.

None.

There's no hardship.

There's no danger.

There's no storm of life through which he cannot take you.

He is able to see you through the storm.

That's what we need to remember when the ship is about to sink.

So let's look then at the authority in Jesus.

The authority in Jesus.

To do this, I'd like you to turn with me to the book of Job.

The book of Job.

And it's here that we really begin to see what Matthew's driving at and recounting this situation.

Matthew chapter 38, I'm sorry, not Matthew, Job 38, beginning in verse 8.

This is God speaking.

Remember, throughout the whole book, there's this back and forth between Job and his friends, the awful friends who just don't know how to be a help to him.

And God finally answers Job, and in Job 38, we have a question that we need to consider.

Here's that question.

God says, Who shut in the sea with doors when it burst from the womb?

When I made its clouds, its garment and thick darkness, its swaddling band, when I prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors, and said, Thus far you shall come and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed.

God asked Job, Job, who was it that created the sea?

Who was it that created the barriers to the sea?

Who was it that controlled the waves?

Who was it that controlled the wind?

That's a rhetorical question.

The end of Job is full of rhetorical questions.

Now we don't know exactly what was in the mind of God when he asked that rhetorical question, but I don't think he needed to give Job the answer because Job had already given the answer.

Look back at chapter 9.

Job chapter 9.

Job 9 · chapter mention

Job already knew the answer to the question, and we do as well.

If we just stop and think for a minute and put some thought into our reality, we begin, as those disciples would have to understand what's going on.

Job chapter 9, verse 8, it says, God alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the sea.

Job 9:8

You see, ancient thought believed that the sea was this uncontrollable and uncontrolled terror.

And it was only the greatest of gods that could control the sea.

But God had already revealed to Job He's the one who does that.

He's the one who tramples the sea.

Consider Job 26, verses 12 and 14.

Job 26:12

By his power he stilled the sea.

Then he goes on to say, Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways.

You want to know where God's power just begins to be seen?

In his stilling of the waves.

Let's go on.

Psalm 89, verse 9.

Psalms 89:9

You rule the raging of the sea.

When its waves rise, you still them.

How much clearer do you need?

Psalm 107, verse 29.

Psalms 107:29

God made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed.

You getting the picture yet?

One more.

Psalm 146.

God made the heaven and the earth, the sea and all that is in them.

I love the book of Jonah.

I love it because of the language that's that's used there to give us some imagery.

And in Jonah chapter 1, you know Jonah, right?

Jonah 1 · chapter mention

God said, Go to Nineveh, proclaim my my grace and my mercy to them.

And Jonah said, No, I'd rather die on the sea.

So he runs away, he gets on a boat.

But the Lord hurled.

I love this.

Because I'm a baseball fan.

What's one of the terms that we use to refer to a pitcher?

A hurler.

So I just imagine God in his heaven, in the full windup, getting ready to just hurl that storm down at Jonah.

He hurled a great wind upon the sea.

And as a result of God's hurling a great wind, there was a mighty tempest.

See, God has done this before.

What Jesus and the disciples were encountering was nothing new.

God had done this before.

That's why Jonah said to the sailors on the boat with them a little bit later in that same chapter, he says, I'm a Hebrew.

I worship Yahweh, the God of heaven, who made the sea.

That's why the sailors are scared to death.

Because they're thinking, You what?

You remember the Red Sea account, right?

Children of Israel come to the Red Sea and God splits it in two.

They walk down the middle of dry ground.

Exodus 15, verse 8 recounts that and says, At the blast of your nostrils, the waters piled up, the floods stood up in a heap, the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea.

Exodus 15:8

I think that's why the prophet Nahum could say in Nahum 1, God rebukes the sea and makes it dry.

He dries up all the rivers.

How does Jesus act in the boat?

The disciples, of course, are acting with fear.

How does Jesus act?

He's fully asleep.

Fully asleep.

Exhausted, yet fully secure in his trust in the Father.

You see, Jesus knows that nothing will take his life until the Father's time for him to die.

Hear this well, my friends.

You are safe in the Father's hand until it's time for you to go home.

That doesn't mean there won't be storms.

That doesn't mean there won't be trials.

Doesn't mean there won't be pain.

It means the Father's got you in his hand.

And he will hold you fast.

So the disciples call out to Jesus.

He's there, he's in the boat with them, right?

What does Jesus do?

He doesn't call out to the Father.

He doesn't say, God help us.

Instead, Jesus acts as the Lord of creation.

For that relatively small body of water, this storm could have Generated all kinds of power in that valley.

And Jesus stopped it with two words in the Greek language.

Two words.

And it's gone instantly.

We can see from the account of Jonah that the pattern of sailors in this kind of a storm would be to do everything that they could and then call upon their gods for help.

You know, we're not much different.

We do everything we can before we get to God.

That's generally our pattern.

The disciples do everything they can and then they call out to Jesus.

They're following him, he's their Lord, and surely he can do something.

Does Jesus call out to God?

No.

He acts as God.

He acts as the Lord of all creation.

He speaks and the world responds.

The winds ceased immediately.

The waves stilled as though they could do nothing more than obey the voice of the one who created them.

At the word of the Creator, they must obey.

Normally, storms subdue gradually, with waves and winds subsiding little by little until calm returns, but this storm went away faster than it came.

It came suddenly and it stopped instantly.

Because the one who has control over sickness and disease also has control over all creation.

And the men marveled.

Marveled.

It's a word that speaks of extreme amazement.

Mark's gospel adds that the disciples were full of fear.

They were afraid.

They were afraid of the storm and fearful of drowning, but now they're afraid of the man in the boat with them.

They could not comprehend in their finite minds what kind of being had the power and the authority to stand in a boat and say two words and still the storm.

But according to their upbringing and their instruction in the Old Testament scriptures, they knew.

They knew that there's only one that had the authority and the power that Jesus exhibited.

And that was God Himself.

Yahweh, the Creator, the one who holds all things together by his wisdom and might.

There was no one else capable of such power, and so Jesus must be that same God.

What sort of man is this?

That even that even the winds and the sea obey him.

And Matthew leaves us hanging.

These men had to stay in the boat until they got to shore.

Did they speak?

Were they whispering to one another?

Did they all crowd to one side of the boat?

What's he gonna do to us?

Did they worship?

Were they so humbled by who Jesus must be that they hung their heads in humility?

Were they ashamed by their lack of strong faith?

Did they ask Jesus to increase their faith?

Or was the rest of their time on the lake simply in stunned silence?

We're not told.

So, my friends, we must we must marvel with them.

We must marvel and fear Jesus for who he is.

This is not a mere man.

This, in a unique and wonderful way, is truly God with us.

Emmanuel, Jesus is the one with the authority to control all of creation.

Every storm you face, every trial in your life, every great shaking in your world is an opportunity to trust and ultimately to worship because it shows you Jesus.

So we must then, as Job did in Job 42, say this to God.

I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.

Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.

Lord Jesus, thank you for this vision of you.

Lord, you will take all of us through some storm, maybe many storms, of various kinds.

With James, we ask that you would give us wisdom to endure those storms with insight and understanding and discernment.

But make us more like Jesus.

Enable us to see Jesus more, to know him more, and to understand that he has promised us, I will not leave you.

I am with you wherever you go.

So whatever our storm, Lord Jesus, you are in the boat with us.

Cause us to truly understand that.

And so to respond and trust and in worship, the one who has authority over all creation.

Amen.com.