by Pastor Tim Miller
First Baptist Church of Roxana
Preached September 20, 2020
Like many kids, I was afraid of storms. Growing up in
Kansas, summers meant that I was always on edge. Clouds would black out the
sky. The wind would blow up to a hundred miles an hour. Lightning would strike,
illuminating everything. Thunder would quickly follow, shaking the house. Rain
would fall in an opaque sheet. Once or twice a month, the tornado sirens would
scream that it was time to seek shelter. Tree limbs would fall. The power would
go out. Even worse than all of this, my dad would listen to the police scanner
at full blast, urgent voices communicating the dangers and calling for
assistance.
How we might wish that we had power over nature. We are in
one of the busiest hurricane seasons recorded. Hurricane Sally made landfall
last Wednesday with 105 mph winds and two feet of rainfall in the first hours.
This isn’t the first and maybe isn’t the last hurricane to hit the Gulf this
year. Meanwhile, fires have been raging all around the West Coast for the past
several weeks. Before that, Southern and Eastern Australia was on fire from
September 2019-March 2020. Parts of India are now on fire. Jakarta, Indonesia
was devastated by floods in January. The Philippines are still reeling from the
eruption of the Taal volcano. 2020 has shaken things up with more than 45
earthquakes of a magnitude of 6 or more. Locust swarms have plagued India and
Egypt and East Africa. Bangladesh saw massive destruction from a cyclone in
May.
That’s a summary list. Add in the Corona Virus that has
swept the globe, and it comes close to apocalyptic.
If 2020 has taught me anything, it is that I really don’t
want to be around for the Great Tribulation. I’m sure you agree. Yet it seems
to have had little effect on many people. The typical pattern after a disaster
of some sort has been that people flooded the churches. Though not a natural
disaster, the September 11 bombings 19 years ago brought about a surge in
church attendance, however briefly. So also have devastating storms and
earthquakes.
Yet during the abundance of crises during this year,
churches are fighting just to keep their doors open. Some have been so
restricted that they cannot effectively meet together and serve those who need
spiritual help. Some churches have permanently closed their doors because the
funds have not been coming in due to lack of attendance (whether in-person or
online). A Barna poll in May found that more than a third of churchgoers hadn’t
attended a single online service since the beginning of the lockdowns in March. Now,
many pastors are fearing that much of their congregations will not return once
things return to whatever might pass for normal in the future. Instead of
embracing churches as essential, churches have been shut down while bars and
liquor stores are deemed essential businesses.
Riots have broken out in many places over racial tension.
Dozens of murders happen every week in the big cities. The murder of unborn
babies continues to be celebrated. The sexualization of children is becoming
normalized. Pornography is everywhere.Porn sites receive more regular visitors
than Netflix, Amazon, & Twitter combined each month, and Americans pay more
than $12 billion per year on pornography.
Just browse the movies available on Netflix and Amazon Prime
and the other streaming channels. Many of them are just pornography disguised
as TV drama. We are so surrounded by pornographic images that many young people
think that porn is a normal part of life. 64% of 13-24 year old males and
females admit to watching pornography multiple times per week. Their social
media feeds are filled up with it, and they admit to often watching it while
they are at school.
Don’t think that this is contained to the realm of
imagination. The average number of sexual partners among millennials is 10. In
one of the articles I read, it was stated that the IDEAL number of sexual
partners is 7. That’s what people consider as just the right amount. We haven’t
even started on homosexuality and transgenderism, both of which are becoming
more and more pervasive in our culture. But I think that sufficiently makes the
point that wickedness marks our society. Evil is called good. Good is called
evil. Not even a pandemic or a slew of natural disasters can wake people up to
the imminent danger of the wrath of God. One government leader, a Catholic at
that, said of all these disasters that “Mother earth is angry and she’s telling
us.” Foolishness.
In all of this, they forget the One who does control the
weather and who does have power over sickness.
Consider the text in front of us: 22 Now on one of
those days Jesus and His disciples got into a boat, and He said to them, “Let
us go over to the other side of the lake.” So they launched out. 23 But as they
were sailing along He fell asleep; and a fierce gale of wind descended on the
lake, and they began to be swamped and to be in danger. 24 They came to Jesus
and woke Him up, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And He got up and
rebuked the wind and the surging waves, and they stopped, and it became calm.
25 And He said to them, “Where is your faith?” They were fearful and amazed,
saying to one another, “Who then is this, that He commands even the winds and
the water, and they obey Him?”
This is one of three
accounts at the end of Luke 8 that demonstrate for us once again the power of
our Lord.
Previously, we have been shown Jesus’ power over nature,
demons, sickness, and death. Luke shows us these things once again, so that our
fear and amazement toward the Lord Jesus would increase, leading us to fearless
trust of Him in the midst of our circumstances.
Consider the Lord Jesus, His humanity on full display in the
exhaustion He was feeling from a full day of teaching in the middle of His
preaching tour through Galilee. Preaching is an exhausting activity. Jesus had
preached for days on end while moving through the countryside. He didn’t have a
microphone, so He had to exert even more energy to be heard by the massive
crowds. Mark tells us in his account of this incident that Jesus had just
finished the parable of the sower and several others. So, consider Him, totally
exhausted from the exertion of preaching to large crowds and teaching His
disciples in private. The only time for Him to rest is on this short trip
across the Sea of Galilee. They were in a rather large sailboat, and as they
were sailing across the water, Jesus fell asleep.
That rather intrigues me. This is the only time that we are
told that Jesus slept. We know He slept. We don’t need this passage to tell us
that. He was human. He got hungry and thirsty and tired. He was so tired, in
fact, that He did something I’m not sure I would ever be able to do. He fell
asleep on the boat. Now, we are talking about Jesus, who, although is fully
human, is also God the Son. He knew that storm was coming. The disciples, many
of them avid sailors, were surprised by this storm. Such squalls come up on
this body of water, even today, that take sailors by surprise. They’re
dangerous storms. Yet, Jesus showed no fear concerning the storm. He lay down
and slept, knowing that His Father would not allow Him to come to harm before
His time and knowing what He was about to do as a demonstration of His awesome
power for His disciples. He could have said, along with the Psalmist, “I lay
down and slept; I awoke, for the LORD sustains me” (Psa 3:5). He was in
complete control.
The fierce storm put the boat in danger of being swamped. Amazingly,
not even the water swamping the boat or the wind and waves woke Jesus up. I wonder how long it took for His disciples to
think to wake Him. Did they try to bail out the water? Did they try to weather
the storm for awhile? I also wonder what they thought Jesus was going to do. Obviously,
they didn’t expect this. They probably didn’t know what He was going to do.
They just knew that He could save them.
How about you? In the midst of everything we are facing
today, are you crying out to Him? Having ascended to His Father’s throne, He
never sleeps. He’s not confined to the human body that He still inhabits. I
admit that it is mysterious that He can dwell bodily in Heaven yet be present
everywhere. The problem is, of course, with my ignorance and creatureliness. I
take great comfort that my Christ is bigger than my understanding. How
comforting would a Christ of human comprehension be? I think the disciples on
that day were glad for a bigger Christ than they could comprehend.
As we will continue to find in this chapter, Jesus is
greater than nature. He is greater than the demonic realm. He is greater than
sickness and death. He wouldn’t be much of a savior if He wasn’t greater than
any one of these, would He? Were He too weak to control nature, how could He
cleanse the world with fire and transform it back into paradise? Were He too
weak to control the demonic realm, how could He destroy the works of the devil?
Were He too weak to control sickness and death, how could He reverse the curse?
Do you see how interdependent each of these things are? If you take away just
one of these, it all falls apart. If He could not control the demonic realm,
then He could restore the earth and end the curse, but Satan and his demons would
still be running around. If He could not end the curse, then for what purpose
did He defeat Satan and restore the earth? If He could not restore the earth,
then for what purpose did He defeat the devil and what good is lifting the
curse if we are still living in this world and these bodies that have been
damaged by the curse? Do you see how crucial each of these accounts are? These
aren’t just some cool things that Jesus did! Each one of these miracles
demonstrate that Jesus has total power over each of these things.
Since that is true, then what do we have to worry about in
this life? Don’t mishear me, I’m not telling you to throw caution to the wind.
We know the cautions we must take in the world and at this time. Lock your
doors. Social distance. But we don’t live in fear. In fact, we can live with
such extraordinary joy because of His greatness, even as we sorrow for the
unbelieving world.
Listen to the urgency with which Jesus’ disciples woke Him.
They were crying out, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” Maybe someone
listening to this hasn’t heard much about Jesus. Perhaps you’ve heard that
Jesus will forgive your sins but you don’t know the fine points of theology.
The first thing that you need to know is that He is able and willing to forgive
you and grant you eternal life. All you must do is believe and cry out to Him,
“Lord, I am perishing!” He will save you. But it can’t end there. That’s just
the beginning. Next comes a lifetime of discipleship where you do learn the
fine points of theology and worship Him with greater passion each day.
Look at His willingness to come to the help of those who
trust in Him: Jesus got up and rebuked the wind and waves, and it was all
instantly calm. All at once the wind stopped. The rain stopped. The waves dissipated.
We might call this an eerie quiet. The sudden silence would be disquieting. But
that’s not what drew their attention. In the sudden stillness, the disciples
were riveted on one thing: Jesus. Just by speaking, He had stopped a storm and
saved their lives.
I’ve said before that we have a tendency to read these
accounts without pausing to consider the magnitude of these things. Forget all
the Sunday school lessons and sermons you have heard on this passage. Hear it
with fresh ears as if for the first time. Jesus spoke and the storm stopped.
When was the last time you saw that happen? Not even an army of modern-day
meteorologists can do that. There are those televangelists who claim to command
the weather. If they could, they would be in high demand during every hurricane
and fire and drought. People do not control the weather!
Later, after Pentecost, the apostles perform amazing
miracles in the name of the Lord Jesus. They healed the sick. They raised the
dead. They cast out demons. But they never controlled the weather. It’s not
like they didn’t have opportunity. Paul was caught in a large storm and
shipwrecked on Malta. But he didn’t presume to command the storm. There’s no
one like the Lord! This is extraordinary! The closest we can come to a parallel
is Elijah who prayed seven times that the Lord would send rain at the end of a three-year
drought sent upon Israel for their idolatry. But that’s a far shot away from
commanding the rain to happen. Jesus spoke and it happened. According to Mark’s
account, Jesus told the storm, “Hush, be still.” And it became perfectly calm.
The disciples were very fearful and amazed. They were
terrified. They didn’t go high-five Jesus. They didn’t make some smart-aleck
remark. They didn’t say, “I’m sure glad that’s over. Nice one Jesus.” They were
shocked and incredulous. After months of ministering alongside Jesus, they were
constantly driven to their knees in fear before Him. Once they got their voices
back, all they could do was ponder Jesus’ being.
How often do you ponder these things? I emphasize thinking
about these things so much, because (1) theological meditation has been so
downplayed in the last century and (2) we are so distracted and busy. Do you
ponder the being of Jesus? What do I mean by that? Do you contemplate the
mystery that He was God in the form of man? That as a man, He could speak with
all of the creative authority of God in Genesis 1? That He possessed more power
than a great storm? Why do we spend our time thinking about lesser things? 60
years after Jesus ascended, the apostle John wrote that the apostles had
studied Jesus while He was on the earth. They watched Him. They tried to figure
Him out. 60 years later, John was still contemplating the nature of the
Incarnate Son of God. When you read the Scriptures, do they fill you up with
wonder about these things?
It is amazing that Jesus speaks and creation obeys. His word
is authoritative and creative. Hebrews 1:3 says that He upholds all things by
the word of His power. Col 1:17 says that in Him all things are held together.
Those are fantastic statements. What keeps atoms from flying apart? The command
of the Lord. What oversees the laws of nature? The command of the Lord. It is
amazing to think that Mary rocked the Maker and Sustainer of all things to
sleep.
He is all-powerful. Omnipotent. Jesus doesn’t draw out of
some reserve of power that He has at His command. His power is not outside of
Himself. It’s not something that He
gained. It’s not something that will fizzle out one day. He Himself is eternally
powerful, in and of Himself. He asserts His will, always in perfect unison with
the Father and Spirit, on all creation so that it holds together and works
according to His command.
Jesus spoke, interrupting the normal processes of nature
that would have obliterated the boat, and He input His command, effectively
ending the destructive process of the storm. What power! What authority! Who
could doubt His ability transform the earth, defeat the forces of the devil,
and lift the curse? Who would oppose His eternal reign from the throne of His
ancestor, David? Who would not trust this Savior with their eternal destiny? If
we have trusted Him with our eternal destiny, surely we can trust Him with the
rest of our time on earth. Fear Him, and you have no need to fear anyone or
anything else.
CONCLUSION –
Jesus’ power is unequaled. It is unrivaled. It is
unopposable. Yet, Psalm 2 tells us of those who would oppose the Father and the
Son. They grapple futilely against the sovereignty of God. God merely laughs,
and He declares that He has set His Son as King upon the great Mount Zion, to
one day rule over the earth forever. If they stopped to consider the magnitude
of power that they are grappling against, they would stop their rebellion and
bow to Him. In fact, the psalm closes with a call for the nations to repent. It
is a call that is timely for our day.
Now therefore, O kings, show discernment; Take
warning, O judges of the earth. 11
Worship the Lord with reverence And rejoice with trembling. 12 Do homage
to the Son, that He not become angry, and you perish in the way, For His wrath
may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!
Those who oppose Him will be swept away in the day of His
great wrath when He is (1 Thess 1:7) “revealed from heaven with His
mighty angels in flaming fire, 8 dealing out retribution to those who do not
know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 These
will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord
and from the glory of His power.”
But all of those who put their trust in Him will be saved.
