Who Is This Man? (July 12th, 2020) - Julian Freeman

Hey Redemption, it is great to be able to be with you this morning.

The only thing that makes me sad about being with you this morning is that it means I can't be with you in person.

These are strange times, strange circumstances all around.

But know this, we are thankful for you as a church.

When we as a church at Grace Fellowship pray for other churches in the GTA, we're praying for you.

We thank God for you.

We love your gospel testimony, and we give thanks to God for the work of grace that he is doing in your midst.

And it's important for you to know that I love and look up to your pastor.

Pastor Mike is a good friend.

I love him, I admire him for his transparency, for his humility, for his courage, for his conviction, his love for truth, his eagerness to do what's right and to serve you guys, his care and love for you.

All of these things have just been a huge encouragement to me over the years as I've gotten to know Mike.

And so it is a privilege to be able to be with you this morning and to get to do the thing that I love to do the most, which is open up the word of God together.

We want to do that.

So I'll ask you to turn with me to Matthew chapter 8.

Matthew 8 · chapter mention

In our church, we're working through the Gospel of Matthew, and I wanted to share with you one of the episodes in Jesus' life here that was used to encourage and to strengthen me.

I'm going to read to you from Matthew chapter 8.

Matthew 8 · chapter mention

We're near the beginning of Jesus' ministry, beginning in verse 18.

We jump into the middle of the story of Jesus' life here.

Now, when Jesus saw a great crowd around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side.

And a scribe came up and said to him, Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.

And Jesus said to him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.

Another of the disciples said to him, Lord, let me first go and bury my father.

And Jesus said to him, Follow me and leave the dead to bury their own dead.

And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him, and behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves.

But he was asleep.

And they went and woke him, saying, Save us, Lord, we are perishing.

And he said to them, Why are you afraid?

Oh, you have little faith.

Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great cold.

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

Let's pray.

Father God, our heart's desire this morning is that we would know him who the winds and the sea obey, him who is worth following, him who came to get broken and messed up with disciples like us, who often feel like we have little faith.

Father, we pray, open our eyes to behold glorious things in your word.

Open our eyes to behold glorious things of your Son, that we would be transformed and filled with conviction and faith and follow him wherever you're calling us to follow.

We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Well, I don't know if and when this ever happens in your house, if you're a household where there are kids.

But sometimes the deepest questions get asked late at night.

It might be because their little hearts have taken in a ton of information and they've been busy engaging the world around them for the day, and they haven't had a chance to stop and process.

And as they lay down their sweet little heads on the soft pillows, the thoughts ruminate and the deeper things, the weightier things of life settle in and they process and they contemplate and they want to ask the heart level questions.

Or it might be because they don't want to go to bed yet, and they know if they ask questions about Jesus, dad's gonna want to keep talking, and so they use it to stay up later.

I'm not sure which of those it is, but I'll still keep talking about Jesus anyway.

Sometimes, as my kids are going to bed, oftentimes when they're going to bed is when we get these types of questions.

Here's the question Dad, what do I have to do to become a Christian?

How do I become a Christian?

That's a great conversation.

I love having that conversation with my kids.

There's lots of things we talk about, lots of ways we think about it together.

I love talking to my kids about repentance, about what it means to see your sin, to feel sorrow over your sin, to want to turn away from your sin, to leave your sin behind and follow up a new direction of life, following Jesus Christ, to repent.

I love to talk about faith, belief, what it means to take a step in the direction of the evidence and to follow Jesus, to put all your trust, all your hope, everything.

Just place it on him.

Here's one of the ways I talk about it with my kids.

A way that someone shared with me years ago.

They said the gospel message that we need to believe, that we need to treasure, is a message you can take with you in your pocket everywhere you go.

It goes something like this.

You take it out of your pocket, you've got it right here.

It's Christ died for our sins and was raised.

And you can take that, pack it up, put it back in your pocket wherever you go.

Christ died for our sins and was raised.

Let's take it straight out of 1 Corinthians chapter 15, as Paul is reminding the Corinthian church what is the gospel that they must continue to believe if they are to be saved.

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

Now, on the one hand, it's as simple, what do I have to do to be a Christian?

It's as simple as saying, repent and believe.

What's the message that we believe?

Again, it's as simple as saying Christ died for our sins and was raised.

But the reality is that these are in fact profound truths.

You can take any one of these words, for example, Christ died for our sins.

Take any one of those words and you can unpack it, you can dig in, you can go as deep as you want, and you can spend all kinds of time un unearthing the treasures that's packed, that's buried in each one of those words.

What I want to do in our time this morning is think together about the first word in that phrase: Christ.

Christ died for our sins and was raised.

Who is Christ?

If you want to be a Christian, a Christ follower, a Christ one, you need to know who Christ is.

Who is the one who died for our sins and was raised?

Who is he?

And we're gonna take our cue here in this chapter, in Matthew chapter 8, from the question that the disciples leave us hanging with in verse 27 when they say, What sort of man is this?

Matthew 8 · chapter mention

What sort of man is this?

Who is this man that's in the boat with the disciples that's calling, that's calling other people to follow him, to leave everything behind and follow him?

Who is he?

If you're gonna follow him, you need to know who he is.

We're gonna see that under three headings.

The first one is simply this to follow him, to follow Jesus, you must know him as the Son of Man.

The Son of Man.

Look at verse 18 with me.

Now, when Jesus saw a great crowd around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side.

And a scribe came up and said to him, Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.

And Jesus said to him, Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.

You know, I was thinking as I was preparing this sermon, uh, I don't know why I got thinking about this.

I was trying to think of ways that Jesus and Donald Trump are alike, and I thought, well, I'll just make a list.

And turned out my list only had one thing, and it's it's and it's and it's this, is what I see in this text.

And as you're aware, as you get to know the life of Jesus, you understand that Jesus and Donald Trump have this in common.

Everywhere they go, when they're about to open their mouths, no one has any idea what's about to come out next.

What's about to happen next?

With either one of them, it is totally unpredictable.

And you can keep going with this because you can guarantee that no matter what either one of them says, someone's gonna love it, someone's gonna hate it, but no one is gonna actually understand why that just happened or what it meant.

This is crazy what Jesus says.

On the surface of it, it's hard to understand.

Where is this coming from?

If you read this text and you have questions, why did that just happen?

What did that mean?

You're in good company.

Let's try to ask some questions about what's happening here.

First of all, my question is why is Jesus leaving the crowds?

Look at verse 18.

He saw a great crowd around him, he gave orders to go to the other side.

Now, if you're starting a ministry, if you're planting a church, or you're trying to gain it, you're trying to gain a following.

You're trying to get a crowd, you're trying to win people to your side.

Jesus sees the crowds and says, Let's get out of here.

Let's go to the other side.

This is different than what we would expect.

One commentator writes about Jesus and popularity.

He says, popularity is like Jesus' shadow.

It follows him wherever he goes, but he will never chase after it.

He's not after crowds and masses of nameless surface-level followers.

He wants deep following, meaningful following from people who get it, people who understand, people who know him.

Even if that means the crowd has to be smaller at first.

So here out of this crowd comes a scribe.

Who's a scribe?

A scribe is someone who is trained in reading and writing and teaching and quoting and explaining Jewish law.

So in a Jewish culture, uh, the day, in Jesus' day, someone like a scribe who could read and write and explain the law and tell you about what the different rabbis have said and interpret the law for you would be a person who is popular, a person of some standing, a person of some social clout, a respectable person.

And so here's this respectable person who's coming up to Jesus, who is himself popular, and saying, You, popular teacher, I am a respectable person, so I will follow you wherever you go.

This is a very flattering way for this scribe to address Jesus.

I'll follow you wherever you go.

Teacher, teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.

So why in the world does Jesus respond this way about foxes and birds and the Son of Man having nowhere to lay his head?

Well, the only way this makes sense is if you understand that what Jesus sees in this man is a man who is popular and a man who is comfortable.

And when he looks at Jesus surrounded by crowds with seeming upward mobility in society and says, I will follow you wherever you go.

Jesus discerns, in fact, no, friend, you will not follow me wherever I go, because to follow me will mean giving up comfort and giving up popularity.

This man would rather have the approval of the masses without Jesus than to gain Jesus and be rejected by his peers.

That's what Jesus sees in this man.

He is not willing to give up, not willing to lose, not willing to sacrifice comfort or popularity for the sake of following Jesus.

Jesus says the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.

The only way you can understand what Jesus is actually saying here is if you actually get what he means when he says son of man.

Who is the son of man that Jesus is talking about?

What difference does this make?

Jesus is referring to prophecy.

Daniel.

In Daniel, before the throne of God, all of heaven worshiping and adoring, and all of creation standing in awe, Daniel sees one like a son of man who ascends to the very throne of God, who enters the throne room of God, walks up to the throne like he owns it, and sits down.

Who can ascend to the throne of God?

Only one who himself is God.

He has a vision of one like a son of man with all the authority and the power and the glory of God himself.

That's one way we understand what it means to be the son of man.

But there's other ways the scripture uses this phrase as well.

For example, in passages like Psalm 8, it's used almost just as if it's a way to describe what it means to be truly human.

What is the son of man that you would care for us or that you would consider us?

So sometimes it just means human.

In Ezekiel, Ezekiel uses the phrase son of man to refer to himself as one who was a prophet, who pronounced judgment, the oracles of God, the judgment of God on his people who rebelled and disbelieved and was rejected by the masses and suffered for speaking the word of God.

So when Jesus calls himself the Son of Man, which one of those is he referring to?

The one on the glorious throne?

The one who is human?

Or the one who is a prophet rejected by his people?

The answer, of course, is yes.

It's all of those.

This is exactly who Jesus is.

He is the glorious one from heaven who has left his glory to come to earth.

If he has no home on earth, it's because he left his throne behind in heaven.

If he has no place to lay his head, it's because he's already taken off his crown.

He has sacrificed first.

His mission, the mission of the Son of Man, is worth losing everything to gain.

Worth losing everything to become a part of.

And Jesus isn't gonna call you to that without him going first, without him showing you first.

He gives himself and sacrifices first.

But friend, let me be blunt.

Following Jesus will cost you, it will not make you popular.

You will not gain millions of followers on Twitter and be adored by the masses on Instagram.

You will not gain instant promotions in your workplace.

You will not be instantly loved by your neighbors when they understand that you are a Christ follower.

It will cost you, it will cost you friends, it will cost you people's opinions, it will cost you comforts in this life.

There will be things that you want to buy that you won't be able to buy because your money is invested in kingdom purposes.

There may be shows or events or cultural things that are going on that you would like to take part of, but you can't because you're following Jesus, who is pure and treasures those, seeks those who themselves are pure in heart.

There may be a boy or girl that you would like to make a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a husband or a wife, someone that you would like to be in a relationship with, but they themselves are not following Christ.

And you know you cannot be with them because they would take your heart away from Christ.

There may be promotions at work, more money at work that you have to leave on the table.

You have to give up and walk away from because of your commitment to your family, as Christ commanded, and your commitment to the family of Christ, your local church.

It will cost you to follow Jesus.

There will be people who will cancel you, write you off, ignore you, block you, disregard you, treat you for dead because you follow Christ.

If you are going to follow him and make it through, you must know who he is.

He is the Son of Man who left heaven and came to earth to call you to leave earth and come with him to establish the kingdom of heaven.

Who is this man?

He is the son of man, and we follow him as we understand him to be the son of man.

But here's the second thing we see of Jesus, who, if we are going to follow, we must know he is the one, or we must see him rather, as the son of man on a mission.

So he's the son of man who left heaven to come to earth, but he didn't just come to earth to walk around aimlessly, he is on a mission.

Look at what he's doing next in verse 21.

Another of the disciples said to him, Lord, let me first go and bury my father.

And Jesus said to him, Follow me and leave the dead to bury their own dead.

Okay.

Maybe you didn't like the Donald Trump analogy.

It's I mean unfair comparing Jesus to Donald Trump, whatever.

But maybe you know someone else in your life who's one of those people who just will just say things and you're like, wow, I did not see that coming.

Maybe, maybe it doesn't seem polite.

Maybe it it seems like that was unnecessarily um uh uh uh offensive or somehow conf confrontational.

Sometimes, if we're not careful, we can almost read Jesus that way.

Here is this guy who is who who is he?

He's one of the disciples.

Verse 21, another of the disciples.

So he's been following Jesus for a while, and he's following the traditions of his people.

From all appearances, it looks like he's doing this from a good heart.

Let me go and bury my father.

He's trying to do that, presumably, as a devout Jew who wants to honor his father and mother, and this process that he is talking about is a process that would sometimes take up to a year, going and burying his father.

Because it could be that his father is not actually dead yet, he's just dying, and so he's saying, Let me stay back and care for my father while he dies, and then take care of the funeral arrangements and then come follow you.

Or he could be referring to the burial practices of the Jewish people of the day, where after someone died, they would initially be buried, they'd be wrapped and buried in a tomb, and then they would decompose, and then after they had decomposed, they would go in and take the bones and wrap up the bones and put them in a little ossuary, a little box, and they would keep that.

And so he could be referring to that process, which again, this this whole thing could take up to a year.

And so he's saying, Jesus, I gotta go, I gotta other stuff I gotta do first, and then I'm gonna come follow you.

It seems like he's doing this out of a heart to honor his father and mother.

Why does Jesus respond this way?

Leave the dead to bury their dead.

I think the best way to understand this is with a little bit of Old Testament context.

So look back at 1 Kings chapter 19, as Elijah the prophet is rounding out his ministry, and he's about set to hand it on over to Elisha, who's gonna take up the mantle, the prophetic mantle after him.

1 Kings 19 · chapter mention

He goes to get him, and this is what we read in 1 Kings 19.

So Elijah departed from there and found Elisha, the son of Shaphat, who was ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen in front of him, and he was with the twelfth.

Elijah passed by him and cast his cloak upon him, and he left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said, Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.

So Elijah just goes up, takes his cloak, the prophetic cloak, and throws it onto Elisha.

Apparently, Elisha understands what this means.

He gets it.

So he gets off the oxen, runs after Elijah, and says to him, Let me go kiss my father and mother.

I gotta go say goodbye to them, let them know what's going on, um, wrap things up, make sure my house is in order, and then let me come follow you.

And look at what Elijah says.

He said to him, Go back for what have I done to you?

He's like, you don't want to know what ministry is gonna do to you, man.

Take all the time that you need.

Go kiss your father and mother if you want, don't even come.

Just like, just whatever you gotta do, go do, take your time.

See, in the days of Elijah, there was time to go kiss your father and your mother, but because these are not the days of Elijah, there is no time, Jesus says.

The mission is urgent, the time is now, the kingdom of heaven is coming to earth, right in front of your eyes.

Young Jewish man, do not go back to kiss your father and mother.

Come and follow me.

This is urgent.

Here's how Don Carson gives a little bit of perspective to this as well.

Uh this confrontation.

Now Jesus confronts this man in his commentary.

Here's what Don Carson writes In actuality, we may well question whether Jesus was really forbidding attendance at the Father's funeral any more than he was really advocating for self castration in chapter 5.

Do you remember in chapter 5, Jesus said, Look, it is better for you to go into heaven having cut off parts of your body?

To stop you from sinning than to take your whole body intact to hell.

So he said, if your eye causes you to sin, you pluck it out, if your hand causes you to sin, you chop it off, whatever it is you need to do, do it to deal with your sin.

But we understand that in that passage, Jesus was not actually advocating for self-castration.

What he's saying is, do whatever it takes, do whatever is necessary with urgency to deal with your sin.

In the same way here, Carson says, in this inquirer, he detected, Jesus detected in this young man insincerity, a qualified acceptance of Jesus' Lordship.

A qualified acceptance of Jesus Lordship.

And that was not good enough.

Commitment to Jesus must be without reservation.

Such is the importance Jesus Himself attached to his own person and mission.

This is what Jesus saw in the man's heart: a qualified acceptance with reservations of Jesus' Lordship.

I remember when I was younger, I used to often sort of think, wow, it would be amazing to be alive in Jesus' day, the day when Jesus was walking around and ministering on earth.

And I think I would think of that kind of naively, like it would all be great joy, and you'd see the miracles, and they'd be happy and all those things, and I'd just be one of the faithful who get it right from the beginning.

As I've grown older, I've actually grown terrified at the prospect of what it would be like to actually see Jesus in his earthly ministry face to face.

He looks into, he looks straight into, like an arrow piercing through your flesh, straight into your heart.

He sees what's there.

What would he say to you?

He looks at this young man who, by all external appearances, is honoring his father and mother and addresses his heart.

What would he see in your heart?

It's terrifying to me to think behind the veneer, behind the facade, what would he see?

What would he say about what he sees in my heart?

How is this young man supposed to comprehend this?

How's he supposed to understand this?

How is he supposed to get his head around this?

He's supposed to understand that this son of man has already left behind a father who he loves for the sake of an urgent mission.

Jesus, by leaving heaven and coming to earth, has already and forever earned the right and the authority to call us to leave everything behind, every comfort, every relationship, every allegiance behind to come and to follow him now because of the urgency of his mission.

What will it be that we're called to leave behind for the sake of following Jesus?

Recognizing the urgency of his mission.

What will you be called to leave behind?

For some of us, it may actually include family who don't want us to follow Jesus, who would lay claim to the affections of our heart before Jesus.

Here's what Charles Spurgeon, the 19th century preacher, writes about this.

He says, we pay no disrespect to our dearest relatives and friends when we put them after Christ.

That is their proper place.

You hear that?

Our dearest relatives and friends, when we put them second, when we put them after Christ, that is no disrespect.

That is their proper place.

To put them before Christ, to prefer the creature to the creator, is to be traitors to the King of Kings.

Whoever, whoever may come next, Christ must be first.

So what is it for you that must be put next so that Christ can come first?

So sometimes we get paralyzed by these questions because we we try to imagine the future.

We try to think, what is it gonna be that God's gonna call me to leave behind, that God's gonna call me to forsake?

And what if he takes this from me, or what if he takes that person or this situation or that circumstance out of my life?

What if he takes and we get caught in worrying and the fear of these questions?

And I want to just take a step back for a second and say, don't get caught up in the what ifs.

Just look down at your feet.

Where are you right now?

What is it that's in between you and following Jesus right now?

Because right now, that's the only thing you need to worry about putting behind you.

Get it out of the way so that you can follow fully, immediately, and with urgency, follow Christ on his mission.

And understand that whatever it is that he is calling you to leave, it's not because he's vindictive or mean or cruel, it's because he's gracious and compassionate, it's because he's merciful and loving, it's because he's for your joy, and he knows that the greatest thing in all the universe for you is to be caught up in his mission and brought into his presence and made alive together with him.

And so, whatever it is that's between you and that, he wants to remove so that you can have life.

So, what is it he's calling you to place next so that Christ may be first?

He has come on an urgent mission.

If you're gonna follow him, you need to know he's the son of man, you need to know he's the son of man who has come on a mission that is urgent.

And here's the last thing we see in this text to follow him, you must see him as the God man with all authority to carry out his mission.

He didn't just come on a mission, he's the godman with authority to carry out his mission.

Now, just to be clear, if I was in like a homiletics class, a preaching class in seminary, and I offered this as like the heading for a point, I would probably fail.

I understand this is not memorable, this is not a great wording.

All I'm trying to do is figure out how else do you pack all this truth into a few words of what Jesus is trying to show his disciples, of what Matthew's trying to show us as Jesus calms the sea and accomplishes all these things that only God can, as a man who's asleep in a boat, bringing his disciples to the other side to carry on his mission.

I don't know how else to word this, so have mercy on me, okay, with this?

And follow along as we read from verse 23.

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.

Just guys, I love that.

Just pause for a second.

Jesus is asleep, he is a deep sleeper.

I am a deep sleeper, and oftentimes we get ridiculed for the things we're able to sleep through.

And I just want to say it is Christ-like to be able to sleep through anything, okay?

All right.

He was asleep.

Verse 25, and they went and woke him, saying, Save us, Lord, for we're perishing.

And he said, Why are you afraid?

Oh you of little faith.

Now again, we're continuing on this theme of what the like what is happening?

kind of moments.

This is another one of those.

Okay, picture yourself here watching this scene unfold.

There are a group of guys, many of whom are fishermen, many of whom have grown up around the Sea of Galilee.

They understand how the sea acts, how the weather works, they know what they're doing as they go across the boat.

So it's not just like me.

I've never really been much on boats.

So if there was a storm, I wouldn't know that much.

Hey, are we gonna die?

Is this normal?

Is this just a wave?

I don't know.

I wouldn't know what to do.

These are fishermen who spent their life on the Sea of Galilee.

They understand the weather patterns, the waves, the winds, they know how these things work, and they are at a point of desperation in this storm.

This is a huge storm.

Where the word that's used here is the word that we get seismic from.

It's a word that refers to earthquakes.

It's as if there's an earthquake in the sea.

The waves are coming up over the boat, they are swamping the boat, and these men who spent their life on the sea know we are about to die.

And Jesus is sleeping.

He is sleeping while the waves are slapping him upside the head.

This is a deep sleep.

But he's woken up by their cries to save them.

Again, this is so strange.

So picture this, how this is unfolding.

Jesus asleep, they wake him up, and Jesus he wakes up, okay, crazy storm, water coming in, guys panicking, we're all gonna die.

But before he does anything about the storm, he turns around and rebukes them for their little faith.

Why are you so afraid?

You have little faith.

Like you you would think he would at least calm the storm and then address it, but he wants to address the issue before he even deals with the wind and the waves.

And he says to them, You of little faith, now that's kind of crazy too, right?

Because they woke him up and said, Can you do something about the weather?

If I was asleep on that boat, you probably wouldn't be waking me up saying, Hey, can you do something about the weather?

They obviously had some kind of faith in him that he would be able to do something about the storm that they were in.

Otherwise, why would they wake him up and say, do something?

So, what is Jesus getting at when he calls them out on their little faith?

Look at what happens next.

Verse 26.

Then he arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.

There was a great storm, and now there's a great calm, like an eerie calm, like a what in the world just happened.

There was a great calm.

And the men marveled, saying, What sort of man is this?

That even the winds and the sea obey him.

You know, can I suggest there's a difference between the apostles in the boat with Jesus and the disciples who, or the would-be disciples who were left behind earlier in the chapter?

You know what the difference is?

The difference is these guys don't have answers just like those guys didn't have answers, but these guys are willing to ask the questions and stick around until they get the answers.

What does this mean?

What sort of man is this?

They will not leave until they get the answers.

Friend, ask the questions, seek understanding, do not turn away, be like the apostles and ask the questions until you get the answers.

What sort of man is this who has this kind of authority?

See, we've seen people with authority already in the Gospel of Matthew.

If you've been reading along from the beginning of Matthew, you're familiar with King Herod, who was very concerned with his own authority, with his own glory, with his own power, such that when he heard Messiah was born, the one who's king of the Jews is born, he wants them dead.

So he calls the Magi and says, Go find this Messiah and report back to me, that I may come and worship him.

But we know Herod's plan was to kill him, but then there's limits to Herod's authority, the magi don't obey him, and Jesus escapes.

Herod tries to rage again and exercise his authority, he kills all the babies in Bethlehem, all the male children in Bethlehem, but his authority has limits.

He's for all his power, he still can't find one baby.

What about Satan?

Satan with his great authority, his tempting power shows up to tempt Jesus in the wilderness.

He tempts him in the wilderness and offers him all the kingdoms of the earth and their glory of Jesus will just worship him.

But Jesus, after resisting his temptation, dismisses him with the word.

There were limits to even Satan's authority.

Earlier in this chapter, in chapter 8, we saw Centurion, a commander of the Roman army, who knew what it was to command people, go here, do this, do that, and they do it.

But he saw a limit to his authority.

Though he could command soldiers, he could not heal his servant, and so he had to come to Jesus, and Jesus used his authority to heal.

The most powerful people in the world will see the limits of their authority, but we will never see the limit of Jesus' authority.

And that's what the disciples are starting to pick up on here.

When Jesus preaches in the Sermon on the Mount in chapters 5, 6, and 7, he preaches with the authority of God.

And now here in chapter 8, whether he's speaking to diseases or demons or the devil himself, he speaks with the authority of God to command all creation.

What sort of man is this that the winds and the sea obey him?

Well, answer your own question, disciples.

The disciples know the Old Testament, or they should.

They should know the answer to this question.

In Job chapter 38, after Job has questioned God and he is now being questioned by God, God shows up, and what God wants to do is make clear to Job the distinction between God and man.

Job 38 · chapter mention

How do you know who God is versus who man is?

What's the distinction between God and man?

To make that distinction, here's what God Himself, Yahweh Himself, says to Job in Job chapter 38.

Job 38 · chapter mention

Job, who shut in the sea with its doors when it burst out from the womb?

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

Job knew the answer.

What sort of man can command the waves?

The answer is no man, only God.

The psalmist in Psalm 107 understands this as well, reflecting on this: God's providence, God's power over the wind and the waves.

Psalm 107, verse 25.

Psalms 107:25

For he, God, commanded and raised the stormy wind, which he lifted up the waves of the sea.

They mounted up to heaven, they went down to the depths.

Their courage melted away in their evil plight.

They reeled and staggered like drunken men and were at their wit's end.

Sounds like the disciples.

Then they cried to Yahweh, 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 hush.

Disciples, answer your own question based on your own Bible.

What sort of man comes the seas?

The answer is no man.

It is God Himself.

And yet, Jesus is on the boat sleeping from weariness.

Guys, are you grasping the tension present in this narrative?

When you think about who it is we're called to follow, who is Christ, are you picking up the ends of the continuum here?

On the one end, he is sleeping from weariness, but when he wakes, he exercises all power over all nature.

This is incredible.

It's not unique here in Matthew's gospel, we've seen this already.

All the way back in the beginning, with the genealogy of Jesus, the one who was eternal, the one who existed before time, the one who was listed, who existed rather before any of the people in his own genealogy in the fullness of time was born of a woman and entered into our time.

He was eternal, yet born of a woman.

He is the one who experienced hunger in the desert, tempted by Satan, only later to feed thousands of others in the wilderness by merely a word.

He is the one who would be tested by Satan, but dismiss him with a word.

Here in this passage, Jesus has no den on earth, but he will sit on the throne of heaven.

He can sleep from weariness, but when he wakes, he has power over all creation.

This pattern of these tensions, these glorious tensions, continues all the way as we go to the cross where we see the one who is innocent bear our guilt, the one who is all glorious, covered in our shame, the God of life who would take our death and die in the place of sinners like us, the one who died on a cross in order to conquer death itself by rising from the tomb and leaving it empty.

Do you know this God man with all authority on heaven and earth?

Friends, he is glorious, and to know him is to have your mind consistently blown by who he is.

So why does Jesus, this glorious God man with all this authority from heaven and earth, why does he rebuke them for their little faith?

Here's Matthew Henry, an old Puritan commentator.

He writes this about this passage.

He says, Jesus does not chide them for disturbing him with their prayers, but for disturbing themselves with their fears.

See, Jesus isn't upset.

Why did you wake me up with your prayers?

Jesus wants us to come to him with our prayers.

He's not upset about that.

He's upset, not that they've disturbed him, but that they've disturbed themselves with their own fears.

Their fears are the issue.

So you could contemplate it maybe with a question like this.

Think about it this way.

Could it possibly be?

Could it ever possibly be that the long-awaited promised Messiah, anticipated for centuries, for millennia, promised to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, that this Messiah, having finally come and begun to establish the kingdom on earth, would now die in a random boating accident in the middle of the night in the Sea of Galilee before his mission was accomplished?

Could that ever be?

The disciples ought to know that Jesus has come on a mission that he has authority to complete and he will not die.

Nothing will happen, nothing can stop this mission.

The one who has all authority has it to complete the mission of the Messiah.

You know why that's good news for us?

There are many, many reasons why that's good news for us today.

Here's one it's good news for us who are fearful of what we see in our day and age, particularly those of us who are fearful for the church.

When we look at the sort of the rising clouds, the gathering clouds, the gathering storms around the church today, the opposition, the persecution globally, and even now in North America, the opposing forces assembling as a storm against the church of Christ?

When we think about the storms that we've created as a church, as the evangelical church, with our own inconsistency and hypocrisy and compromise, both in terms of doctrine and godliness, and we think, how in the world is this gonna shake out?

How in the world is the church gonna stand?

Are we going to make it?

And we are filled with fear for the future, my friend.

Understand that the God man who came on a mission has all authority to complete that mission, and there is no storm that will sink the boat that Jesus is on.

This thing will hold together.

Here's again Charles Spurgeon.

He says this, still they, the disciples, they may have thought if Christ be on board this ship, will he allow it to sink?

Can he be drowned?

Listen, the Church of Jesus Christ is the pillar and buttress of truth.

It's the only hope of proclaiming the gospel to this lost world.

We carry Christ.

If we carry Christ, our boat cannot be sunk.

The mission is certain and will not be swamped and sunk by any waves, either waves of persecution and opposition or waves of compromise.

Can we be drowned?

Only if Christ be drowned.

Can he be drowned?

Here's what Spurgeon says: we carry Christ and all his fortunes.

Is not our vessel, our boat, thus insured beyond all risk?

He may well say to us, Why are you fearful?

Oh you of little faith.

He who had authority to lay down his own life and had authority to take it up again, who has authority over the sea and the winds that day still has authority over every wind and wave that sets itself against the Church of Jesus Christ.

Christ.

If we're gonna follow Christ, if we're gonna be Christians and not be those of little faith, we must know who is he.

He is the God man, the Son of Man, the God man with all authority to bring his urgent mission to completion, bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth.

If you're not one of his followers yet, I want to beg with you this morning: do not walk away like the first would-be disciples we read about today.

Be like the apostles.

Ask the questions.

What sort of man is this?

What is he like?

Who is he?

And lean in and don't let up until you get the answers, until you know him.

If you're trying to follow him, if you're one of his followers and it seems like the cost is high, like it's demanding great things of you, and you don't know if you're gonna make it.

If you're looking ahead into the future and it seems scary, my friends, look again to Jesus.

Remember who is the Son of Man who has called us to follow him, and remember that he has placed every one of his enemies, every one of our enemies, underneath his nail-pierced feet.

If you are in the boat with him, you are safe.

No matter the storms that assemble against us.

Let's pray.

Father God, we ask that you would help us to believe what we have read.

We we pray, Father, we believe, help our unbelief.

Show us more and more of Christ that we would worship Him, follow Him, honor Him, put everything else second, that He would be first.

We pray to Jesus' name.

Amen.