The Lord of the Storm (Derik Fuller) | Who is Jesus?

Amen. Please have a seat.

Church going to ask you to open your Bibles to Luke chapter 8,

Luke 8:22

verse 22. I'm also going to ask you to

pull out your phone. That is those of you who aren't

already secretly watching underneath, and I want you to

turn off the game and put on your calendar app.

OK, so pull out your phone, grab your calendar app and go to May

30th. And on May 30th, I want you to

write this in there, the big surf, because that is going to

be our date for the big serve this year.

And we would love to have all of you engage in that as we go and

serve our community. And if you're looking and you

say Derek, May 30th, I've already got plans.

I've got good news for you. You can go to May 29th because

we're going to do it on May 29th as well.

So you can choose one of those two days to put it in, but I'm

hoping that all of you will choose to be a part of going out

and serving our community in the name of Jesus.

It was a great day when we did it last year.

It's going to be better this year, Lord willing, because

we've moved it later. And I'm hoping the weather is

going to be a lot nicer, especially if we're doing any

gardening or litter pickup or anything like that.

All right, let's read this passage together from Luke

Luke 8 · chapter mention

chapter 8. Luke chapter 8, starting at

Luke 8 · chapter mention

verse 22. Love this story.

We're going to dive into this today.

One day he and his disciples got into a boat and he told them,

let's cross over to the other side of the lake.

So they set out and as they were sailing, he fell asleep.

Then a fierce windstorm came down on the lake, and they were

being swamped and we're in danger.

They came and they woke him up, saying, Master, master, we're

going to die. Then he got up and rebuked the

wind and the raging waves. So they ceased.

And where? And there was a calm and he said

to them, where is your faith? They were fearful and amazed,

asking one another, who then is this?

He commands even the winds in the wave and they obey him.

The Lord bless the reading of his word.

Just want to confess. There's a lot of things that I

personally struggle with. Sometimes I care too much.

Sometimes I work too hard. Now there's a there's a whole

lot of real things that I struggle with.

I can be impatient. I can be selfish and

self-centered. I struggle with pride at times.

I want to be right, I don't. I hate to lose an argument, but

fear is not something that I regularly find myself struggling

with, probably to a fault. I'm going to throw a picture up

on the screen back here. It's a it's a picture of

paragliding just outside of Beirut.

I've been to Beirut 4 times and every single time I have gone I

have pleaded with the people that I'm with to allow me to go

paragliding in Beirut. I want to run off of that

mountain and jump out into the air and just sail over the city

and out to the Mediterranean. And every time, for some reason

they tell me no. And I was there again in

October. So I pleaded again.

And one of my friends who is much wiser and smarter than me,

he said to me, Derek, have you ever Googled paragliding in

Beirut? And I said, no, why would I do

that? He said, just how about you just

just do that? Just do a quick Google of

paragliding in Beirut. And then I saw that I was there

in October. Between May and August, they had

suspended all paragliding because they had, in a number of

weeks, three people die. That did not change the fact

that I still wanted to go because I saw people up in the

sky and I thought, well, it must be OK.

Now they're going again because I amongst the other things I

struggle with, I am dumb. There are a couple times,

however, where I found myself legitimately scared and and

interestingly, a lot of those have involved water.

One time we were in the Backcountry of Algonquin.

I was a teenager, I was probably about 15 at the time and I was a

male 15 year old teenager. So I was even Dumber than I am

now. And there was an island out in

the lake across from our campground and I thought, hey,

let's swim out to it. Now I am actually a pretty good

swimmer, but I am heavy and I think I am a good swimmer and a

even better sinker. And I got about halfway there

and I started to get very tired and I did not wear a life jacket

to do this. And I thought, I'm halfway

there's, I can't go back and I can't go forward either.

Is is going to be just as difficult.

And I did start to panic a little thinking this is my end

in Algonquin in the Backcountry, swimming out to an island. 10

years ago, we were out on Lake Erie doing a family get together

with my parents and my sister and her family, all of my my

niece and nephew, all of our kids.

We were on a pontoon boat and we were heading out.

We were in the Long Point area. We were going to head out to the

tip of Long Point, which is just an absolutely beautiful spot if

you can get out there by boat. And one of the things with Lake

Erie, if some of you are boaters, you know this, like

especially in the inner Bay, there is when it's still, it is

just awesome. It's like glass, you're gliding

out there. But things can change quickly on

the lake. And so we got out, we had a

wonderful time out at the tip by the lighthouse.

But on our way back, a storm started to roll in.

And pontoon boats are great, but they're not great in big waves.

And so the waves started coming over the Bower, the front of the

ship, and they were splashing on.

And, and I don't often get scared on a boat, but I was

starting to get a little legitimately worried about

whether this boat was going to make it all the way back to

where we were going. And what, after what seemed like

a long couple of hours of waves splashing over the boat and

trying to keep everybody calm, we did make it back.

But I realized that when you're in a storm like that, that type

of situation, that type of fear reveals some things.

It reveals some assumptions. I had to start it.

I had assumed that that the weather we had started with that

morning in the calm, lovely day was going to carry on all

throughout the rest of our day. I just thought, hey, we're out,

we're starting. It's going smoothly.

I assumed it would finish smoothly.

It revealed not just assumptions, but it revealed to

me what matters most. At no point while I was out

there and starting to fear, feel some fear build up did I start

to think about my To Do List at work.

I didn't think about any chores that needed to get done around

the home. Now all of my thought started go

to especially Amanda and my kids who are on the boat with me.

What matters most to me in that moment?

And then the question of who or what do you trust that It

revealed that because there were three of us on that boat with

pleasure craft operator licenses.

And I thought, who do I trust to take this boat back to shore

safely? I realized it wasn't me.

I only boated like a few times. I had my license, but I am not

the guy my dad was boating. And I thought to myself,

actually, I kind of wish my brother-in-law was sailing the

ship right now because he has the most experience out on the

water. He had the most experience

guiding a boat. Dad, I'm sorry if you listen to

this. Never told him that before.

But that's what storms do. That's what crises do.

They reveal things. They they unmask our

assumptions. They reveal our priorities.

They show in what or in whom do we actually place our trust?

And in today's passage, Jesus disciples, as we saw, they find

themselves in the midst of a storm and it's going to reveal

some things about them. But also and more importantly,

this passage is going to reveal some things about Jesus and the

Jesus who is in the boat with them.

And so I just want to say, if you're here today or you're

watching online or you're listening at some other time and

you're in the midst of a storm right now, here's what I've been

praying for you this week. I've been praying that this

message will do some of that revealing work in your hearts

and lives, that you'll be able to see where there's some things

that are being exposed. But I'm also praying that you

will be deeply encouraged and strengthened as we reveal some

things about the Jesus who can be in the boat with you.

And if you're here today and some of you, I'm praying many of

you are in a spot where it's clear skies, sunny skies, blue

skies, water is calm, that I pray that this message would act

as preparatory work for you to prepare you for the times and

the realities that will inevitably come where you're

going to find yourself in the middle of a storm.

So let's just walk through this passage together and see what

God wants to reveal to us about our hearts and what he wants to

reveal to us about who Jesus is. One day Jesus and his disciples

get into a boat and he told them, let's cross over to the

other side of the lake. So that's what they did.

They set out and as they were sailing, he fell asleep.

Then a fierce windstorm came down on the lake and they were

being swamped and were in danger.

So Jesus and his disciples, it says we're out on a lake.

What lake were down? They were on the Sea of Galilee.

I'm going to throw a picture up there on the screen behind us

just so you can kind of get a picture of the Sea of Galilee.

It's a geography. It's 21 kilometers longish.

It's about 13 kilometers wide. So it's a Big Lake.

But for those of us who live in southwestern Ontario, not a Big

Lake, right? We're used to much, much bigger

lakes. But this is still a large lake.

It's surrounded, as you can see here.

It's kind of a bowl. If you can see on the map around

it, the topography that the the sides of the lake go up steeply

and quickly around it. Some of you have been blessed

enough to be in Israel to see it and to see how the lake kind of

sits down in this bowl. And so they're up in kind of the

northern part, just north, northwest and Capernaum.

And they're going to head across the lake east to the story part

that we're going to be in the area that we're going to be in

next week in our story. But they're heading towards the

Gargessa, which is right there on the right hand side on the

border of modern day Syria. That's where that sits, just so

you can kind of place yourself there because of the topography,

because of the way in the geography, that of the Sea of

Galilee and the way that it sets.

Storms can come up really quickly because wind can come

down through the River Valley, through that Upper Jordan River

and come and it brings cool air down and it just stirs

everything up as the cool air hits the water.

And actually, in 1992, I was reading this this week, there

was a storm, maybe like the storm that the disciples

experienced, where all of a sudden out of the blue, the sea

generated 10 foot waves that just crashed into the port in in

the city of Tiberius, causing a huge amount of damage.

And so this is a reality on that lake when it says a fierce

windstorm came down on the lake and all of a sudden they're in

this boat and it is being swamped and they're in huge

danger. Now, think back, we've just read

through the passage. How did the Israelites there,

how did the disciples, they were Israelites, by the way.

How did the disciples find themselves in this danger?

How did they end up in this situation where they were on a

boat that was about to go down anybody because Jesus told him

to go there? They ended up in the storm

because of Jesus. And I think this is really

important. It was actually by following

Jesus's lead in instructions that these guys find themselves

in this predicament. It says Jesus told them, let's

crossover to the other side of the lake.

Great, let's go do that. And they say, yes, Jesus.

So they set out. The first thing that we need to

see when we look at this passage, when we look at this

story is obeying Jesus won't keep you from experiencing

storms. I just think this is so

important that following Jesus is is not going to keep storms

from hitting your life. If you think, well, as long as

I'm following Jesus, as long as I'm doing what Jesus asked me to

do, life should be calm seas and blue skies.

You're going to find yourself in a spot where you're going to be

so disillusion, so disappointed, because that's just not what

life with Jesus looks like. Now, Are there times where we

find ourselves in the storms of our own making?

100%, absolutely. We do a lot of really dumb

things that bring storms on us. All of us do.

We do it where there's a lot of times where we find ourselves in

a storm because we ignore the words of Jesus, because we

ignore his commands, because we refuse the leading of the Holy

Spirit in our life. It it's never wrong when you're

in a storm to to take the moment to do a little introspection and

say, how did I end up in this storm?

Was this a me ignoring Jesus or is this a me following Jesus

storm? But you can't assume that

because life got hard or things got difficult because you find

yourself in the middle of a storm right now, that either you

misheard Jesus or Jesus got it wrong and didn't live up to his

end of the bargain. Because there is no bargain that

says follow me and life gets easy.

If you assume that following Jesus guarantees a smooth ride,

then one of two things is going to take place in your life.

The 1st is you could end up in a spot like I just said, where you

just assume, you know, you must have messed up Jesus's

instructions along the way. You must have misheard him.

You must not be doing what he wants you to do.

And you take guilt and shame and blame on you that you shouldn't

take. You start to think you're being

punished. The second thing is that going

to happen is you assume that God got it wrong.

But Jesus, Jesus, how could you do this?

You called me into this and this is what happens.

You really messed this one up, Jesus.

But sometimes obedience is exactly what leads you into the

middle of the storm. And Jesus didn't get it wrong.

And you didn't get it wrong because that's what happened

here. The disciples, by doing exactly

what Jesus had told them to do, have found themselves in a

hugely dangerous, difficult, scary position.

Their boat, and some of you feel this right now, this is what

your life feels like. Their boat feels like it's going

down. So what are they going to do?

Verse 24, they came and they woke him up saying, master,

master, we're going to die. So I would say this to you, if

you're in the storm, run to Jesus.

If you're in the storm, run to Jesus.

I said that storms reveal, One of the things that storms reveal

is just how vulnerable and weak and small every single one of us

is. Listen, there's at least four

guys in this boat who are professional fishermen who have

grown up, spent their whole lives on this body of water.

They would have had zero fear heading out onto the lake that

day until the moment where they got hit in the face with the

reality that they can't control or tame this lake, that the

storm is so much bigger than them before running to Jesus.

What seems evident in both the text and what you can imagine

happening is I'm sure that they would have done everything in

their power to try and solve the situation.

Again, they they knew what they were doing out there.

They felt like they had some modicum of skill to be able to

navigate this, and it wasn't until they were at their wit's

end that they came running to Jesus.

Because they say master, Master, not hey, we're having a little

problem here. Hey, you think you could help us

out with it? No, Master.

Master, you better wake up because you're going to die.

We're going to die. We're all dead.

That was the message. We are out of solutions.

The only hope left is that Jesus, you could do something

that we couldn't figure out. Now how often?

Do we find ourselves in situations where we try and

manage the situation, control the situation, apply our skill

to the situation, do everything we can on our own until there's

nothing left for us to do, And then we throw up our last minute

prayer and hope that Jesus may be like, I don't have a lot of

faith because if I couldn't figure it out, you probably

can't either. But maybe you could jump in,

right? Some of you today you're in

storm management mode, like the disciples were there for a

while. You're trying to navigate it.

You know, I think I've kind of I've lived enough life, I should

be able to handle this. You're you're calling on your

friends. You know, it's getting tricky

here. Could use some help guys.

So calling them to assist you act like you're worry can steal

the waves. You ever done that?

Maybe if I just stay up all night thinking about the same

thing over and over again, that'll fix it.

It's worked so well in the past that maybe my worry will really

work this time. You try and self medicate the

storms away. She's asleep and maybe I maybe

the goal is to just sleep through this thing and hope we

get out the other side. You just act by as if your own

effort and your own skill, you will be able to calm the waves

and navigate the storm. And here's what I think Jesus.

Jesus says run to me. Run to don't leave him as the

desperation moment of last resort.

Because look at what happens when the disciples finally get

to the point where they wake Jesus up.

It says he got up, rebuked the winds and the raging waves, and

so they ceased and there was a calm.

The storm came to an end. If you are in a storm right now,

run to Jesus. Not when you've exhausted

yourself or exhausted your options.

Call out to him now. Then he says this to them.

Where's your faith now? There's something before we dive

into what Jesus says there that I want you to notice in terms of

the ordering of how Jesus does this, because I think this is

important. It's it was important for me

this week. Jesus calms the storm before he

calls out the deficiency in their faith.

What I love about Jesus is he's kind before he's corrective

because I'm not always that way. I don't know about you, but I, I

could do to be a little bit more like Jesus in this.

I think there's a lesson in this for a lot of especially probably

for a lot of us who are parents on how we love our kids, how we

love people in the midst of the storm.

Let's let's walk with people in the midst of the storm before we

try and point out the deficiencies, OK?

But at the end of the day, this will be a message for some of

the rest of you who just want to do The Walking part.

Loving people requires more than helping them just manage their

way through the storm. It requires confronting them

about the object and the reality of their faith, he says.

Guys, where is your faith? Because storms reveal the depth

of our faith, fear is a natural protective response.

It's a God-given gift. Like if you are in the mountains

of BC or Alberta and you are walking on a path or a trail and

all of a sudden it's you and a grizzly bear, it is right and

proper to get away from the grizzly bear.

That is a good move. It is not a good move to be one

of the six to seven percent of American males who think they

could take a grizzly bear on in a fight bare handed.

OK, I'm I am hopeful that in the reality of the moment when that

takes place, that number goes down to like 0.60 point 7% of

men. I'm hopeful.

Not convinced, but hopeful. Some of us do.

We have an irrational level of self-confidence.

That's what we talked about in our home.

And sometimes the mercy of God, the grace of God, is he puts us

into storms that we can't handle to humble us and help us, help

show us how small we are, how incapable we are.

The problem that Jesus had with the disciples is not that they

believed the storm was too big for them to handle.

It was too big for them. It's not, that's not Jesus's

issue here. It's that they were worried that

the storm was too big for him to handle, and so they thought they

were all going to die. I mean, it's easy to trust Jesus

on those beautiful days where life is calm and everything is

going great and everything is going well and everything is

coming up roses. The wind is gentle, the seas

like. I love those days.

I hope, I hope you have many of those days.

The question is though, when the storm comes up, how do you who's

Jesus to you, not on the on the beautiful days, but who is Jesus

to you on the stormy days? See our response in those

moments in the midst of the storm.

Those are what reveal what we truly, honestly in the depths of

our being believe about Jesus, not the nice words we can utter

when everything is going well. So if you had asked Jesus, if

you, if you had asked the disciples when they were just

getting ready to go on the boat and it was nice day and they

say, hey, guys, just a question. Do you think Jesus could raise

somebody from the dead? Well, they've already seen him

do it. So they say, of course Jesus can

raise somebody from the dead. Then why are they so worried

when they think they're going to die?

Because it wasn't their lives on the line then, was it?

It was all hypothetical and theoretical storms force us to

reckon with what we believe. Deep down on the inside.

When everything is on the line about Jesus, do we really

believe that He is good? When nothing good seems to be

going on in our lives, do I really believe that Jesus can be

trusted? When the rain and the and the

wind is blowing so hard that I can't even see the hand in front

of my face to try and navigate out of this, do I really believe

that he will provide when the bank account is at 0 and the

bills are coming due to keep a roof over my head or food on my

table? Do I really believe that Jesus

is the one who has conquered death?

When I'm staring death in the face?

Do I believe that the Jesus who's in the boat with me is

more powerful than the storm that is overtaking me?

Do I really believe that the Jesus who's in the boat with me

won't get out of the boat when the storm comes?

I said earlier, if you assume that following Jesus will be a

smooth ride, then when life inevitably gets hard, you're

either going to feel like you've messed it up or Jesus has.

But the reality is that Jesus often leads us into the storms

in order to build our faith. It's when you're put through the

Crucible of having to actually step out onto the things that

you say. You believe when when everything

is going well, that your faith gets solidified.

It gets solid. That's what the result was for

the disciples that day because it revealed some things about

the disciples, but it also revealed some things to the

disciples about who Jesus really was, right?

And it says they were fearful and amazed, asking one another,

who then is this? He commands even the winds and

the waves, and they obey him. And just a moment ago they were

terrified of the storm. Now they're like, man, we were

scared of the storm. Jesus way scarier than the

storm, it says. It says they were fearful and

amazed because they saw one who was bigger than the storm.

I mean, in the storm they were in, it was a big one.

Again, they were experienced guys out on on, on a boat.

They know what a bad storm. They know when their boats about

to go under. But now they understood it

wasn't just them in the storm. They had the creator of the wind

and the waves in the boat with them, and they saw it in a way

they hadn't been able to see it before with all the amazing

things they had seen Jesus do. This built their faith again.

Oswald Chambers says that the remarkable thing about fearing

God is that when you fear God, you fear nothing else.

When, when you actually see God for how big he is, nothing's

bigger than him. Nothing's more powerful than

him. You realize, hey, I really, if

I'm with him, I got nothing to fear.

If I'm not with him, I got some problems, you know, as as devout

Jews, these guys would have known the Old Testament.

They would have known the Psalms very well.

And I'm sure in this moment at least one of them had this

Psalm. Psalm one, O 7, This section of

the Psalm come to mind. So what the psalmist writes here

and put it up on the screen. Then they cried out to the Lord

in their trouble, and he brought them out of their distress.

He stilled the storm to a whisper.

The waves of the sea were hushed.

They rejoiced when the waves grew quiet.

Then he guided them to the harbor.

They longed for this man who they called Teacher, who they

called Master, the one who just minutes ago was asleep.

Because he is in fact man. He was human, was not simply

human. He was no mere man.

He's Lord over the storm. He's ruler over all things.

He is God. There is no storm that he can't

come. There is no crisis that is too

big for Jesus to handle because there is no inch, no centimeter,

no millimeter in all of creation over which he does not rule and

reign. He's the Lord over the storm.

He's the ruler over all things. And what was true of Jesus in

that moment, in that day on the boat with those disciples is

true for us today as well, because Jesus is the Lord over

your storm. So let me ask you, what storm

are you in right now? Maybe it's a marriage that feels

like it is taken on water. Maybe it's the storm of a

diagnosis that's come out of nowhere.

I know for many of you have talked to you and I know the

pain of this, that you've experienced this.

Maybe the storm of a prodigal child.

Maybe it's the storm of financial pressure, that anxiety

that just won't let you sleep at night.

Maybe you got a storm of just a in your business and your work,

a leadership burden that just feels too heavy for you to be

able to carry. And some of you right now, man,

you're bailing water as fast as you can.

You are working to try and keep that boat afloat with all of

your might. You are so exhausted trying to

keep this boat upright. And Jesus question to you, I

think would be the same as his question to his disciples and

them of us. Where's your faith?

What are you going to trust? It's.

It's not. Did you know Jesus did not ask

the question? Do you feel calm?

No. Storms are scary.

We don't feel calm. He doesn't.

He doesn't say. Do you have it all figured out?

No. They didn't have it all figured

out. There's no one to do.

He doesn't even ask them. Have you stopped being afraid

now that the water is clear? You all.

You all stop being afraid. No.

Where's your faith? What do you where?

Where is your faith anchored this morning?

Is it anchored in your ability or your plan, your skill, your

wisdom, your reputation, your emotional strength to get you

through? Or is it anchored in the one who

speaks in the winds and the waves Obey you?

You don't. I just want to let you know you

don't need perfect faith. You just need to have faith in

the one who's perfect. A small grip on a strong Savior

is better than a strong grip on yourself.

Jesus is inviting you to come and to see Him today, to see him

for who He actually is, the Lord over your storm, to rest in Him

today. If you've never trusted in Jesus

as the ultimate object of your faith, if your faith is resting

in anything other than Jesus, as the one who can truly save you

not only from your storms but from your sins, today's the day.

Call out to Him, confess your sin, trust in his death on the

cross for your sins and His resurrection power to grant you

new life. Surrender your life to Him like

like the three gentlemen who were baptized this morning have

done, and confess their the reality that's taking place in

their life. You can join them.

It's open and available to anybody.

You can't control the storm of sin and death.

Good news, Jesus already overcame it.

If you belong to him, stop trying to try harder.

Stop acting like your worry is going to keep you afloat.

Stop acting like you're alone in the boat with nobody who can

help you. Instead, turn to him.

Cry out to Him. Run to Him, and even if the

storm doesn't immediately cease, you can be calm because he's in

control. See Following Jesus.

It doesn't prevent storms, but it does mean that the Lord of

the storm is in the boat with you through all the storms.

And if the Lord of the storm is in your boat, just as the

psalmist was able to say and to cry out, you can be certain that

he will ultimately lead your boat to safe harbor.

Let's pray God, I have no idea the storms that are represented

by those who are hearing this today.

I have no idea the depth, the severity, the strength, but you

know, you know every single individual who is here today,

who is watching online, You know everyone who will ever hear this

message, You know their storms, you're bigger than their storms.

You love them. You want them to call out to

you. I'm praying that you would grow

our faith. Help us to see you more clearly.

Help us to see you as not just Lord of storms, but Lord of our

storm today so that we could rest even in the midst of all of

the chaos that is going on around us.

We could rest knowing that the boat that we're in with you

safe, and we could rest knowing that no matter what happens,

you're going to see us through to safe harbor because that's

what you do. Whether that safe harbor is

going to come immediately or whether that safe harbor rests

for us on the other side of whatever life brings, help us to

anchor our hearts ourselves to you.

Help us to place our faith in you.

I pray in Jesus name, Amen.