Faith Through the Storm - Matthew 8:23-27

Amen. Well, my name's Eric.

I am glad to be here with you guys here at Redemption Church,

North Ogden. And we are continuing on in our

series, Our King and His Kingdom.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is represented as not only just

king of the Jews, but king of the whole world, the whole

universe. And he came and he started

setting up his Kingdom. And we as the church are the

visible Kingdom of God here and now.

Even now, spiritually speaking, God is taking more and more

ground. It's only really visible where

the gospel is preached and presented.

But the more people come to faith, the more the Kingdom

grows. And so as the church were tasked

to help build this Kingdom, he uses us to do that.

But along the way, it can be scary, it can be troubling, it

can be hard. If anybody ever told you that

becoming a Christian is going to make your life so much better,

you're going to be wealthy, healthy, and happy.

They were lying to you. They're probably a false

teacher. I'm not saying that there isn't

much joy. In fact there's more joy as a

Christian than there is to be a non believer.

But it does not mean that your life will in fact get easier.

In fact, Jesus has been teaching his disciples up into this

point. We're in Matthew chapter 8 and

Matthew 8 · chapter mention

he's been teaching his disciples about what it means to be a

follower of Jesus and what it means to set up the Kingdom of

God on earth and how much work it will be and how much

rejection there will be, how many trials there will be the

the spiritual warfare that happens in this life.

And so if you're here today and you can resonate and relate to

some of that, that maybe life isn't always gum drops and

lollipops for you, well, you're in good company because that is

what Jesus said was going to happen in this life.

It was going to be difficult. And for us then as followers of

Jesus, as disciples, we need training in order to live this

life. And, and so Jesus is in this

section, Matthew is revealing to us some things about Jesus and

his teachings where he's doing a lot of miracles in chapter 8 and

9, where he focuses on these miracles of Jesus.

And it's to prove his power, to prove who he is and also to show

us what the Kingdom looks like that that there will be no more

sickness and death and evil in his Kingdom as he casts out

demons and he heals lepers and he heals the centurion servant.

And but he's also teaching along the way.

There's all these lessons that we can learn for our own lives.

And in this lesson today, we're talking about going through a

storm. Jesus leads the disciples

through a storm, and I've titled the message Fear through the

storm. In fact, that's a wrong title.

Let me just change that really quick.

It's supposed to be faith through the storm.

Now, fear is what we see, the natural reaction of the

disciples when they're first on these waters and a storm pops up

in the boat. But really what they're supposed

to learn is to fight their fear with faith.

We are a people that live by faith in the midst of trials and

storms. And I want to ask you this

question then. How do you react to fear when

things pop up in your life that that maybe 'cause you to to be

afraid, to be worried, to have anxiety?

Well, I've heard that it was said that there are kind of

three reactions to things in our lives that can be troubling or

scary, and it's the fight, flight and freeze.

It's almost like a physiological reaction that's built in US.

You see, fear isn't necessarily always a bad thing.

Fear is an emotion given to us. It can be healthy or unhealthy,

but by itself it's kind of neutral and it's emotion that

helps us be vigilant about our safety.

That's the the first reason for it is automatically when fear

pops up as an emotion. You're not in sin because of

fear, but how you react. That's the difference, how we

react in fear. Are you one of those people that

automatically fights? I was watching you.

Ever seen those a video where there are people like that where

I was watching this family where somebody was dressed in like

this clown had a clown mask on and was hiding around the

corner. And as soon as someone jumped

out or as soon as someone was coming around the corner, he

jumped out and immediately the guy just punched him in the

face. Like that's a natural reaction.

I was, I was pretty amazed by it that he was that quick.

You know, that's a fight reaction to fear, just automatic

response. Some of us are the flight.

Is that you when you get afraid immediately you run for safety,

run for cover, try to get alone, try to to get away from the

chaos that's causing the anxiety.

Or are you one of those people that freezes where it's like

something happens automatically, your brain shuts down for a

moment. You can't even move.

You can't even talk. I've I have been that way in my

own life where when a lot of chaos is going on, all of a

sudden I can't think. I think there's a fourth one

though. All these words that start with

F and today, what do you think that word is that?

I think our reaction should be faith, fight, flight, freeze or

faith. And Jesus wants to teach us

today that faith should be our reaction in situations that

bring about fear. So the context, as I've said,

we're in in in Matthew chapter 8, we're going to be in verses

Matthew 8 · chapter mention

23 to 27. Dwight, just read those verses.

This is a famous story where Jesus calms the storm, and so

far we've seen all these miracles.

But today we're adding to the list of the miracles that we've

seen. This is now a nature miracle.

Not only does Jesus have the power to heal your physical body

or to cast out evil spirits to fight against evil and darkness

in the world, but he has control over nature itself.

Now let me give you a little visual or a geography lesson

about this, this place, where are they at in the water?

This is the Sea of Galilee. And on the Sea of Galilee, it's,

it can be treacherous water sometimes because it's

surrounded by mountains. And, and with that, the swirling

winds can come and, and, and bring about waves really

quickly. And it can get get pretty

treacherous sometimes because of the weather and the winds that

swirl. It's about four times the size

of Willard Bay over here. So if you can think of that or

imagine that. And in fact, I have a friend who

used to be, you know, Box Elder County Sheriff, and he used to

get called out to Willard Bay often.

Willard Bay is this shallow body of water.

And when when it gets really windy, it's very easy for boats

to capsize. I know, I'm not saying you

shouldn't go there and have fun on the water.

You should. But I'm just using this as an

example that it can it can turn ugly really quickly if it gets

really windy, like water, big waves.

And so that's the context of where we're at.

Jesus had just got done preaching the Sermon on the

Mount. He's come to Capernaum where

he's doing miracles. And now in in verse 18, if we

back up, it said now when Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave

orders to go over to the other side.

And so where are they going to the other side?

They're trying to escape this crowd that's been following

because of the miracles. He's become famous now and it's

getting a little bit chaotic and they're like, we, we need to go

to the other side. But along the way, Jesus wants

to teach them lessons. And that's my first point.

There are lessons in the storm, verse 23 and 24.

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.

So they get into this boat. They're on their way over the

Sea of Galilee. A storm pops up.

In fact, that word in the Greek here is seismoth and it comes we

we get our word seismograph from that, which literally means a

quaking or a shaking. And in this context it's the

shaking of the boat or the shaking of the the waves in the

water. Other places in the Bible this

is a word used for a literal earthquake.

Now, we don't know that that's what happened, that it was an

earthquake that caused these waves or if it was just the wind

alone, but this meant that it was a great storm.

That's what it says, great storm, a violent shaking and

quaking. And just so you know, there's

there's in the Bible and in our faith in especially in the Old

Testament, the seas, the ocean, the waters, they represent a

powerful and scary place that can cause pain and death.

Did you know that it wasn't until about the 1800s that

people started swimming recreationally?

Before that, people were have been afraid of the waters for a

long, long time. Recreational swimming worldwide

didn't become a thing until about the 1800s because people

always looked at the water and kind of saw this.

There's kind of an unknown. There's an uncertainty about it.

There's a scariness to it. There's a there's an immensity

to the global water. In fact, the stories of the

flood, God has used water in judgment.

If you go back to the beginning in in the book of Genesis,

before God created everything, he did it in sequential days.

And in the first day, it says the spirit was hovering over the

waters and the, the everything was formless and void.

There was a darkness. There was a deep darkness and a

chaos. And it wasn't until God said,

you know, let there be light and, and made the sun and the

moon, the stars on the different days and things like that, he

was bringing, he was bringing order into chaos.

So I say all that to say, in Old Testament theology, there's the

fallenness and A and a, a darkness, even some fearful

undertones of great bodies of water.

We have to take these into consideration when we're reading

these texts and their stories because there's lessons for us

to learn in here. Not only were humans, by the

way, when they sinned in Genesis chapter 3, cursed, but it says

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

the whole world was cursed. And so there's this proper fear

probably of great bodies of water.

Now, these were fishermen though, so we need to understand

that they were comfortable in a boat.

So it must have meant that this was a very scary situation.

Now I, I have to tell you this, that Jesus is sovereign.

He is God in the flesh. Do you think that he knew what

he was doing? Do you think he knew what was

going to happen when he called them to go into the boat to go

to the other side? I submit to you, He knew all of

it. He knew everything.

He knew the outcome, He knew what he was going to do, and he

purposely sent his disciples through this storm for a

training time, for a lesson. These were his, his followers

that we're learning how they were going to have to pick up

and carry this thing after Jesus died, resurrected and ascended.

They were going to now be the ones left to start building the

Kingdom. And they needed some training.

They had a lot of gaps. They had a lot of things to

overcome. They needed their faith to be

strengthened, and Jesus is the great Master and instructor and

He uses this storm to help them contemplate their lives, to

contemplate their hearts, to test their faith.

Storms are the same for us. Then it might not be a literal

storm in our lives that God uses, maybe sometimes an

earthquake, a hurricane. But this is although this is a

literal story, what we are supposed to consider here is

what happens in scary moments of our lives.

What's the point of it? Do we ever consider God?

What are you doing here? Do we have that type of faith?

Do we believe God is as big as the Bible says he is, or do we

think that he's some kind of some kind of man upstairs?

You've heard that saying before. He's just the man upstairs who

he started everything. He set it in motion, but now

he's sat back and now he just watches us.

Let's see how this all turns out.

Let's see what they do. That's not what the Bible says

God is like. In fact, God is ordaining all

things that come to pass. He looks at everything and he

says, OK, I will allow that, or oh, I will cause that, or oh,

this is going to be good for us. Though we see trials in our

lives, we see storms in our lives as man, this is terrible.

This can't be from God. Certainly God has no hand in

this whatsoever. But remember, Jesus is in the

boat with them. Jesus is with the disciples in

the storm. He's not worried.

He's actually asleep is what this says.

He knew He had the power to stop the wind and the waves, but if

he has that power, does he have the power to start them as well?

I don't think we think of God this way sometimes, but this

story is what is trying to show his disciples and us is that

sometimes God calls us to go through a storm.

Now, sometimes storms come in our lives because of our own

sin. We cause problems, but the Bible

says that God is a good father who disciplines those in whom he

loves. But sometimes storms in our

lives aren't anything to do with because of our decisions.

It's because God wants to strengthen our faith.

He wants to teach us something through this.

So what are some examples of storms marriage problems?

Now I would probably say that most of our marriage problems

are probably because of sin, because of your sin, husband,

wife. But sometimes God even puts us

with a person who will almost be the exact opposite.

Why? Because he wants us to be more

well-rounded. He wants us to be a a full

person, not just this one sided person.

He wants to humble us. He wants to make us into people

that are more like Christ. And the only way we can do that

is to be put with someone who can help us get there, whether

through the loving way or through the the hard way.

God uses marriage problems to bring about yours.

And my Holiness, I want you to understand that if you're going

through something right now in your marriage, don't blame the

other person. I know that's what we always

want to do. We want to blame the other

person. Well, they do this and they do

that, and our marriage would be good if they would just stop

doing this or that. But have you ever thought that

maybe God wants to change my perspective?

Maybe God wants me to be forgiving and gracious because

he doesn't hold all my sins against me, that I shouldn't be

holding all my sins against them.

How did he change us? Did he come to us and say, I

will only be in a relationship with you if you love me

perfectly, but every time you mess up, I'm out of here?

No, he said, I love you. I came and died for you while

you were still a Sinner. God is teaching us things

through our marriage, through our family problems, through our

wayward children. When our children walk away from

the faith or are being rebellious, is that I?

I hope that causes us to question, man, did I do that to

my parents? Right.

Or do I do that to my heavenly Father?

It's a grace of God for us to learn these lessons in these

hard times about financial issues.

We've gone through the Sermon on the Mount where he says, don't

worry, don't have anxiety over money.

I will provide for you. How about physical ailments,

problems in our bodies? They're wearing out.

Did you know it's the grace of God to remind us, hey, that this

body isn't going to last forever, but I'm going to get

one that does one day and live for eternity.

Is he not trying to build our faith through the, the, the

struggles and trials of our life?

And we think God has no part of any of this.

And yes, he does mental and emotional disorders.

How about accidents? That happen in life.

Are there really truly accidents if God is sovereign.

They seem like that. And sometimes we don't know.

I mean, so many, you know, car wrecks have happened and just it

seems like senseless evil throughout the world.

And we, we think, how can any good come from this?

But yet, as believers, we're supposed to say, wait a minute,

God causes all things to work together for good.

We need to look at life's storms, even natural disaster,

spiritual warfare as opportunities to see God's

transforming power and His work in our lives.

This verse, I love this verse because it reminds me how

sovereign God is. Isaiah 45, seven.

He says I form light and create darkness.

I make well-being and create calamity.

I am the Lord who does all these things.

So I tell people all the time, did you know that God uses

trials for his purposes and it's OK Then instead of saying this

is unfair or I can't believe this randomly happened to me or

all this evil is coming against me, it's OK to say instead, OK

God, what are you trying to teach me?

If we, those people of faith could come to every trial and

storm this way, rather than the faithless way or reacting with

fear, I think we could learn our lessons a lot quicker.

That's my my healthy fear of the Lord, or at least I try to have

it as soon as something comes up in my life, I have to remind

myself, OK, God, you're solving. What are you doing?

What are you doing in this? What do you want me to know?

But as we move on then from learning lessons in the storm,

we need to understand although this can make seem make God seem

like wow, he can be extreme sometimes or maybe that's mean

to make people go through such difficult circumstances.

But just remember, as I said earlier, that Jesus is with us

in these storms. God himself came down to earth

to be with us in all of this, to be mistreated by others, to go

through the ultimate storms and trials and tribulations of being

rejected by His own people, suffering and beaten and taken

to the cross and be put to death.

That was the most unfair act in human history, that He was the

one and only man who never deserved, served punishment,

never sinned. He's not a God who's trying to

put us through all kinds of things that he wouldn't go

through himself. Jesus is with us in the storms.

He's with his disciples in the boat.

And there are three things I want you to see in this point

here is that he's calm, caring and in control.

Verse 25 and 26 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.

Now it's interesting because Jesus is sleeping, and yet Psalm

121 tells us that God never sleeps.

It says he neither sleeps nor slumbers.

And that Psalm is meant to be a Psalm of, of giving us

confidence and assurance that while we are going through this

life, that he's there to protect us.

He protects us. It says he's he's the shade for

us. And it's a it's a Psalm of

protection for God's people as they go up the mountain.

It's called one of the psalms of ascent.

When they go up to worship at the temple, they would sing this

song that God never sleeps nor slumbers.

But Jesus Christ is both fully God and fully man.

OK, so in his humanity, it shows that he is fully human as well.

Here while he was on on Earth and even now resurrected, he's

in his human flesh, in heaven, glorified.

But on Earth, he'd been doing all these miracles for hours on

hours, lacking sleep, worn out. People were pressing in, coming

to to find him, to get him to do miracles for him.

And so he was tired and he was able to sleep, but not only was

he able to sleep because of his body being worn out, but he's,

he's, he's able to sleep because he's calm.

Why is he calm? Because he's God and he knows

what's going to happen. He was not worried whatsoever.

I could you could just imagine that Jesus is sleeping, maybe

even snoring at the front of the boat.

The disciples this, this, the storm comes up and they're like,

what is going on? And you, you hear it in their

voice. Save us, Lord, we're perishing.

God's not wringing his hands during our storms as if he's

worried how it's going to turn out.

The version of this in Mark chapter 4, verse 38, it's

Mark 4:38

interesting we see a little bit more in the dialogue of what the

disciples say. It says he was in the stern

asleep on a cushion, and they woke him and said to him,

Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?

And here's the second part of that.

We know he's calm through our storms, but he's also caring.

They say, do you not care? And he awoke and rebuked the

wind and said to the sea, peace be still.

And the wind ceased and there was a great calm here.

The disciples are downright rude and unfaithful.

They've watched Jesus do all these miracles time and time

again and yet right next to him even and they say, do you not

care? Maybe that's a question when

we're going through tough times in our life for us, Have you

ever thought that about God? Do you even care, God?

I mean, this is intense. This is a big deal.

How are you allowing this to happen in my life?

But he does care. He's proven that he cares.

He cares. He he wakes up immediately

rebukes them, but then rebukes the wind and the waves.

He says, OK, I'll take care of this.

God hears our prayers even if we're rude sometimes.

I'm not saying to do that, don't be rude, but you can ask God

questions. Like I said.

What are you doing in the storm? Lord, do you care?

He hears our prayers even in our frantic fear and our

unfaithfulness, even in our sin. He hears our prayers because we

are his children. I love what Psalm One O 7, 28

through 30 says. Then they cried to the Lord in

their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.

He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were

hushed. Then they were glad that the

waters were quiet, and He brought them to their desired

haven. He hears our cries.

And this is interesting. By the way, this is written

about 1000 years before this even happened.

And this to me looks like a fulfilled prophecy of the story

that we're reading right now. Why is he calm?

Because he knows he's the caring God who is going to deliver

them. But sometimes it's not in our

timeline. Sometimes it might take a long

time. Sometimes now we know that the

disciples make it to the other side.

We have the story delivered them to their desired haven.

But what if in God's will, the desired haven is heaven?

Are you willing to endure and have faith that long?

God does care. Through our tough times and

trials, Jesus is a compassionate God.

We've seen it time and time again when He He does miracles

that He doesn't have to do for people, and He did not have to

come and die for us so that we could live in an eternity in

heaven with him. That's a caring God.

He's also in control. As I said, He's sovereign.

He's not worried, He's trying to teach them that they don't need

to worry because he's the promised king who has not only

authority over sickness and disease, but now over creation.

Do you know who stands among you?

Basically is what he's saying to them.

By doing this miracle, only God can have control over the

weather and over the waters, over the the universe, and

that's Jesus. It's the Bible says in him all

things hold together. Jesus even now holds all things

together. Without him this world would

spin out in chaos, but he holds his creation together.

Psalm 89.9 says you rule the raging of the sea when it's

waved, waves rise, you steal them.

Jesus can command with a word. He's in control.

And I know we say this a lot as Christians, God's in control,

God's got this, but we have to be reminded from Scripture time

and time again to fight our fear.

Going back to this, I want to see, I want you to see how

powerful he is. It says he rose and rebuked the

winds in the sea and there was a great calm.

Now most of us probably imagine him saying something.

Peace be still and all of a sudden it just slowly, have you

ever seen like a, a tub of water and you move it back and forth

the waves and then you stop it and it just slowly comes to a

calm. Well, that's not what happened

here. I don't believe that that's what

happened here. Immediately it was windy and

crazy and WAVY and shaking. And immediately with the word,

it's like the sea was a sea of glass and all it says a great

calm. It didn't say eventually there

was a great calm. It said there was a great calm

after he rebuked the wind in the waves.

My commentary from William Hendrickson says wind and waves

synchronize in the sublime Symphony of solemn silence.

That's a beautiful thing to think about in your mind, even

in a in a storm in your life. A lot of the storms that we have

are internal, aren't they? Like the things are going on

outside. But the real problem is in our

hearts and in our minds. It's our little faith, as he

says. Why are you afraid?

Often times we worry about things that 90% of the time

don't actually come about and don't actually happen.

We work ourselves up in a frenzy over fear and if only we could

go to the Lord Jesus because He cares and he's with us and

believe that he could calm us that way, would you start doing

that, Christian? Me too.

We we all together need to stop in our fear and by faith pray to

the sovereign God who's in control when we're worried and

in fear. And one of my favorite quotes is

from Charles Haddon Spurgeon, who says this, when you go

through a trial, the sovereignty of God is the pillow upon which

you lay your head at night, giving you perfect peace.

There been things going on, you know, recently, like in my own

life, anxiety, I've had fear, you know, about certain things.

And I don't know if you know what it's like.

I'm sure you do. But when your mind is racing

about what could happen or what's going to happen if this

or if that, in fear of a situation, you can't sleep when

you're overthinking. But this gives me comfort.

Why am I overthinking things and circling around this fear of

this possible trial when I could be excited about what God is

going to do, even though it's scary, even though I have to go

across this, this stormy, raging sea of uncertainty and darkness?

If God is in control and He has my good and His glory in mind,

then what if we started getting excited when trials came?

I know that sounds extreme, right?

Or at least when we're lying in bed trusting God's got this, He

is in control. Why have I worried time and time

again when He has come through time and time again?

And that's the last thing I want to talk about.

Then he's trying to teach us to fight fear with faith, hearing

this story back to our verses again.

And he said to them, Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?

Then he rose and rebuked the winds in the sea, and there was

a great calm. And the men marvelled, saying,

What sort of man is this that even wins?

And sea obey him the disciples fear revealed their lack of

faith and really that is kind of the great battle is fear and

faith our faith is really put into action and proved when

these circumstances come up and here's the crazy thing they were

with him. They've watched him deliver,

they've watched him heal, they've watched him do miracles.

And I know in our world, when we're fans from far away, we're

really impressed by somebody, right?

Like think about your favorite musician or your favorite

athlete. And from far away, we think so

highly of these people. We're so impressed with these

people. But what happens when you get

closer to these people? You, you know them.

You start to become less impressed and you start to

realize they're just a regular person.

You know, there's nothing really impressive at all about them.

John MacArthur once told this story about his grandson who

came in and sat on his lap after, you know, Sunday morning

preaching. And he said, you know, Grandpa,

you are really something when you're up there in the pulpit

preaching. You really are.

People are listening to you and they follow.

And he's like, when you come down there, come down from the

pulpit, though, and in your regular life, you're really not

that special at all. And isn't that the truth of

regular people? We can idolize people out there

in the world and you get to know them and they're just as fallen

and just as broken as we are. And they're not really that

impressive. But it is the opposite with the

God man Jesus Christ. They should have been more and

more and more impressed the closer they were to Him.

And they were failing in their faith.

They still weren't close enough to him in relationship to trust

and know who He really is. Their faith kept wavering.

This proves this is one more lesson and among many other

lessons he's going to teach in the book of Matthew and in the

narrative of a of his life that the the short three-year

ministry that he had on earth of of why we should trust him as

his followers. But we got to get closer to him.

We've got to know who he is. We've got to know the words that

he said, we've got to pray to him, and we've got to look at

the miracles He's already done. We need to look back at life,

our lives as believers, and all the times that we have worried

about this or that or the other thing.

And how many times has He come through for you?

How many times did that storm not turn into such a storm at

all? Or how many times did He deliver

you through a hard situation, but you've come out on the other

side as someone with greater faith, more maturity?

How many times has God taken care of you?

Are you not close enough to even notice?

Do you not have the faith to notice that the good and the bad

in your life He has been sovereign over?

He's been trying to teach you something this whole time, and

just the fact that you're here, living and breathing is the

mercy and grace from Him. When will we recognize who He

is? That the even the wind and the

waves obey Him. When we recognize that Jesus

Christ is God in the flesh who created everything and His, and

He rules over all, He is the King of kings and He is the Lord

of Lords, we should not fear, we should not worry.

We are favored by Him. Did you know that that's what

grace means, the word grace, it's favor.

We as children of God are favored by Him.

He looks down on us like you favour your own children over

other people, but even more so, God is like, I've got plans for

them, I want to teach them, I want to provide for them, I'm

going to use them and I am going to bring them all the way to

eternity, to heaven one day where they will never have to

worry about anything ever again. That is our future, that's our

inheritance, that's our hope. And with that type of promise,

can we not go through some things here on earth with faith?

The Bible 365 times at least says do not fear, fear not

Isaiah 4110, fear not, for I am with you.

Be not dismayed, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with

my righteous right hand. When he says you have little

faith, you know that we we think of small faith, like barely

believe, but really it means not lasting faith, short faith,

wavering faith. Your faith is like the waves of

the sea. It doesn't last.

When things pop up, you're just like this up and down and up and

down with your faith. You believe me a week ago when I

delivered you from the one thing, but now the new things

popped up and you've you've got little faith again.

It's short, it's not lasting, but we and I just, I just need

you to know I'm here with you like I am constantly repenting

for my lack of faith almost on a daily basis.

Am I saying, Lord, forgive me, I didn't trust you here.

I had fear here I had. I was so afraid I wasted hours

in a day and I didn't get sleep at night and I was useless the

next day because of my own fear. I'm sorry, Lord, I do have

little faith. Forgive me.

Give me great faith. And by the way, there's a

healthy fear that I talked about.

The wrong fear is fearing the storm, the anxiety, the worry,

the the being afraid of what's to come.

The right fear is the fear of the Lord.

That's faith. Proverbs 910 says this.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the

knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

In our verses it said man, what kind of man is this?

And then in Mark 441, in that version, it said they were fear

filled with great fear and said to one another, Who then is

this, That even the wind and the sea obey Him.

They weren't filled with fear anymore about the storm.

Why? Because that was still there was

no more storm anymore. They said, wow, they had a

reverent fear for Jesus. That's a good thing.

Not because he's going to judge you Christian, but because he's

he's powerful. And God as a father does want to

teach you and I lessons. There's a healthy fear from a

kid to a parent. If I do something wrong, he's

not going to disown me, but he's probably going to discipline me.

He lets a lot of things slide, I'll tell you that.

But I have a healthy fear of my Heavenly Father if I do this

thing. I don't want to have to go

through a self caused storm, so I'll just trust you in that.

Jesus is the God who will save us through the storms.

So I want to close then with answering the question, who is

this man? We've already talked about it,

but I need to end with who he is.

He is God, He is good, He is the second member of the Trinity.

The Son of God who came down 2000 years ago, was born as a

human. He took on human flesh.

He lived here, lived a sinless life, and at the age of 33 or so

he was wrongfully accused, arrested, tried and persecuted,

convicted wrongly as a blasphemer and as a Sinner.

And they beat him and hung him on a cross to die.

But it didn't stop there. He rose from the dead, proving

even greater than his power over creation.

He rose from the dead, proving he was God who had power over

sin and death. He went through much trial and

much pain. He didn't try to escape the

storms that were, by the way, sovereignly ordained in planned

by God before the foundation of the world.

Everything that happened to Jesus was in God's will and

plan. You think?

And I think then that somehow our lives aren't ordered by God

as well. Well, I'm here to tell you that

they are Christian Christ follower.

He has all of the things that happened in our lives planned

out as well. We must then know and have

confidence by faith that He's got a reason for this, That my

Savior didn't try to escape. He never had No Fear or worry.

Neither shall I, because He will deliver me one day, whether it's

here on earth or in heaven, I will get safely to the other

side. So let me say this about Jesus.

Proverbs 30 told us verse four, Who is ascended to heaven and

come down? Who has gathered the wind in his

first? Who has wrapped up the waters in

a garment? Who has established all the ends

of the earth? What is his name and what is his

son's name? Surely you know?

And then Job 98, we know all the things that Job went through,

and even Job comes to know who alone stretched out the heavens

and trampled the waves of the sea.

We know it's none other than Jesus Christ God in the flesh,

and he will deliver us. And he asked for our faith.

If you're not a believer here today, I plead with you to say

what the disciples said, save me, save us, O Lord, I'm

perishing. Will you do that today?

You don't know what what's happening tomorrow.

You don't know what your life is going to be, but do know that

there is a God that can save you through the trial and

tribulation of this life. And ultimately, if we wait too

long, there will be a storm like nothing compared on earth for

eternity for those who will not submit and bow to King Jesus.

And that is in a place of eternal destruction in hell.

So ask Him to save you today. For the believer, we've must

trust Him as sovereign Lord over our life.

He hasn't brought you this far to not bring you through

whatever it is you're going through.

He chose these disciples shortly before He.

He took Him through this storm and He's chosen you.

He's got a plan to strengthen your faith.

Will you follow him without having to be dragged kicking and

screaming? Will you see the trials in your

life as a way to deepen your walk with Him and rejoice,

knowing you will be delivered to the other side, whether it be in

this life or the life to come? Let's pray.

Father, we are amazed by you and your plan.

Your ways are so much greater than our ways.

We acknowledge that you are king of all things, that you do have

control, that you are big enough to do whatever you want.

And if you have that power and you are doing your will in our

lives, then we say, do with me what you will only Lord, stay

close to me. Help me in my unbelief, in my my

weak faith sometimes, Father, deliver us, Father, through the

storms in these in these trials in our lives, and help us to

have peace as we follow Jesus. And it's in his name I pray.

Amen.