Weathering the storm

About 20 years ago, I was uh I was on a backpacking trip out in Colorado. Um we used to live out in Colorado and um I had uh been in the mountains for several days and I was coming out of the mountains and um and on my way out uh I had a highway where Sherry was going to meet me. This is kind of before I had a cell phone or anything, but she was going to meet me on the highway at an appointed time. And so I was hiking out that day and uh had about eight miles still left in front of me and I was in this uh this valley region and uh there was mountains on each side of me and uh and and there's a river and a trail that run out towards the highway there. So, as I was walking along, beautiful sunny day, I hear this rumble and uh and I turn around and to my great dismay, there are these giant thunderheads, the ones that are super white on the top and super dark at the bottom. Uh Colorado is known for popup thunder showers that can happen. They can be quite violent at times because of the change in terrain. The mountains can push moisture up. uh it can condense into a storm very quickly and then when it comes into these open valleys it can just dump. Uh the lightning itself can be quite severe because these are powerful explosive storms that have sort of come together very quickly. And living in Colorado especially on the front range I'd seen several incidents where we have what we call dry lightning where the lightning sometimes will strike in front of the storm kills people on the golf course things like that. And so just being a hiker and being out there in Colorado, I learned actually to kind of fear lightning um in a in a certain way. I I didn't love it to be honest. Uh I actually had lightning when I was younger in high school strike near me uh about 60 yards off. It hit a tree. It was pretty I could literally feel the the the electricity. It was pretty uh pretty frightening.

So in that moment, I'm walking out and I think, "Oh man, this is bad." So I start to pick up my pace. But what you find with thunderstorms is you don't outrun them. They're going to catch you. And it gets there pretty quick and it's coming and I can hear the rumble getting louder. And now the dark skies are coming over me. And I've still got probably six miles left to go. And I know I'm not going to outrun it at this point. And I don't want to get struck by lightning either cuz right now I'm out in the open on this trail and there's no trees around me and there are mountains beside and so I just sort of feel like a a sitting duck. Well, quickly I kind of try to like look at the land around me and I find a place and I I kind of hunker down and build a quick shelter with a tarp and some rope and uh and the lightning just starts popping and it's hard and heavy and I'm kind of just sort of ducked down underneath this tarp and I'm pretty frightened and I'm praying praying for safety and uh and I'm and I'm and in the midst of all the rain and the lightning and the fear that I was feeling in that moment as even as I was praying, I just had this sort of question that came over me and it said, "Why are you afraid?"

And I sort of sat with that and even after the storm rolled on and I got up and packed up and continued on, that question just sort of sat with me. I mean, what do I really believe as I was sitting there praying and what do am I really holding fast to? And I the question just was something that made me sort of think about the depth of my own faith in my life. And it really was something that took me to a deeper level of faith as I really began to reflect that I can't just have a faith in my head, but something that I hold fast even more deeply in my life.

Well, storms. We're going to look at a storm today. In fact, we're going to be looking at Matthew 8:23-27. Matthew 8:23-27. And uh and storms come in life. They they they pop up on us sometimes very unexpectedly. We're not always ready. And storms can be a variety of things. They can be long. Sometimes seasons that are difficult, turbulent. Uh sometimes storms are quick and over like the one that I experienced. and and we never know, but they're hard and they challenge our faith at times. And we're going to be looking at this story today about the disciples in the midst of a storm and something it reveals about their faith in the midst of the storm. So, Matthew 8:23-27. And when he got into the boat, that being Jesus, 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're perishing." And he said to them, "Why are you afraid? Oh, you of little faith." Then he arose and rebuked the winds and the sea. And there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, "What sort of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey him?"

Let's pray. Lord, I just pray in this moment, Lord, that you would uh your word would shine forth that you would uh just help me to be uh eloquent in the word that I want to bring today from your scripture. And I pray that you would speak by the power of your spirit to all of our hearts in this time in Jesus name. Amen.

So, as we look at this story, uh this story is going to kind of move through a progress where Jesus is going to challenge them in the midst of the storm to see their faith differently. And there's four pieces that we're going to look at that I think are right here in this story as we look at how this story continues to progress. They're going to be the boat. We're going to look at the storm. We're going to look at the question. And then we're going to look at the revelation that comes about from it. So the boat, the storm, the question, and the revelation.

And ultimately, it's not about a storm, but in the midst of this, Jesus is going to shift the perspective of the disciples. That's his desire to shift the perspective of the disciples in such a way that they will believe in him and his power more deeply so that they might live and be the kind of disciples that he wants them to be that he wills for them to be. And so it is with you and I.

So we look at the boat Jesus it says right here in verse 23 it says when he got into the boat his disciples followed him. So Jesus first gets in and the people who choose to do so, who want to be his disciples. Now Jesus hasn't named his 12 disciples yet in the book of Matthew. So this is still early on. We can presume maybe this is you know Peter and Andrew, right? Some of James and John. We can kind of think about some of those early disciples. Uh remember Matthew hasn't even been called who wrote this book. So that's not even recorded later uh in in the story. But whoever these disciples are, they follow Jesus into the boat. Now to speak to the boat, getting in the boat requires sacrifice.

It get following after Jesus isn't just a no-brainer. The boat and getting in the boat requires sacrifice and surrender. You'll actually remember the story that Dererick preached on last week uh was just that Jesus talked about the cost of following him, what it means to follow him. We actually see uh verse 19 it says, "And when the scribe came up and said to him, teacher, I will follow you wherever you go." And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes and the 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 bury my father.' And Jesus said to him, "Follow me and leave the dead to bury their own dead." So Jesus puts this high mark, following after me is sacrificial. It's not a no-brainer, and it's not easy to just get in the boat.

You have to make a conscious choice that is going to cost you something. Where's the boat going? When are we coming back? Where are we going? Is it going to be safe? Because remember, the land is always safe. But the waters, especially in ancient times, were this primordial world of the unknown. Are we sure that we want to get in the boat?

And we shouldn't in the way of talking about Christianity. We often tell people, "Oh, getting in the boat's so easy and it's going to make your life so much better and things are going to be great." And there's great truth to that. But we should not sell a cheap gospel or a cheap grace that says it doesn't cost you anything to get in the boat. It's so easy and it's not hard. Following Jesus is costly. It's hard. It's sacrificial and it requires faith. Faith is that first step to getting in the boat. The disciples have to decide, is Jesus worth following? Can I trust him? Can I go with him? And somewhere in that, they have to leave behind the safety of the land. They have to leave behind the people potentially. They know we don't know how long we're going to be going. We don't know where he's going to. And you're stepping out into the unknown.

And that's the way that often works with God. He will call us to follow him to get in the metaphorical boat. And not only is it sacrificial and costly, but it requires faith. God called Abraham to go. I'll be with you, but go. Where are we going? You'll know when you get there. And so it is with us in life following Jesus. We don't know what we may encounter, where we may go, what it may cost us. It's just to decide to exercise the faith to follow after him to shift our perspective in such a way that we will now trust him.

And so maybe the question for all of us is is have you gotten in the boat? Have you trusted him? because that's the first step in the journey with Christ and following Christ.

The boat can begin to be this great adventure that we go out on and we can enjoy it and it feels awesome. The ocean, following Jesus, this is great. And and we forget sometimes that boat life becomes hard life as we go out into deeper waters. And the disciples may be eager to follow Jesus. Oh, I'll go with you anywhere, F Lord. I'll go anywhere you take me. I'm so excited to be with Jesus in this radical ministry he's on. And then we get into the open waters of the ocean and land gets further away. Things get deep and we run into a storm.

That's what the disciples hear. It says in verse 24, "And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves, but he was asleep."

Following Jesus at times will involve storms. Now, there's always storms in life, following Jesus or not. But they are definitely going to happen when we follow Christ. And sometimes we get into the storms and we're not sure. Storms have a way of measuring and testing our faith. And not just test in the sense of like it's trying to test and tempt us and make us fail. It's just a testing in the sense of like think about a test of strength. If you wanted to test the structural integrity of something, you would test it to measure it and find out if it can hold. And so often times, God will use storms in that same way to measure and to test our faith in such a way to let us just see how we're holding up the depth of our own faith.

And so it brings the storm brings this sort of mirror that holds up and sometimes reveals the gaps and the deficiencies in our faith. The faith got us in the boat, but we still have to make it through the storm. And the disciples here had the faith to get in the boat, but now they're in the boat and the storm and the waves are swamping the boat. And they're frightened, they're scared, they're intimidated by the storm. And God will use this in the disciples life just as he will use this in our lives in a way to mature and grow our faith. Storms invite us into a deeper faith. Why? How? How does storms invite us into a deeper faith? Well, faith, see, number one, the faith that got you into the boat is not going to be the faith that gets you through the storm. Do you hear that? See, you can get faith and we can start with this sort of faith. I got in the boat and I left behind and that's good. But things get a little bit then you're really tested to see how much do you believe this you know like me in the storm I began to sort of ask like how much I hold these truths mentally. I got in the boat with Jesus. I'm following him. But things that aren't so fun anymore. And we find the waves and the wind and the uncertainty and the depth. And it requires a greater faith to continue in the boat, to continue to journey forward through the storm, not around the storm and not to turn back.

And so they invite us to a deeper faith to mature us because if we do not grow, if we do not allow our faith to be tested, then we'll never mature and deepen in our faith. And God needs us and wants us wants us to have a deep, rich, vibrant faith and trust in him. If we don't grow, we cannot walk deeply with God. And so we cannot venture out to the places and the people and live the kind of life that he ultimately wants us to live. We'll always have this sort of shallow faith that we carry in our lives. And God wants us to be bold and strong. He wants to shift our perspective from simple faith to deep trust and assurance so that when the world is shaking and everything is on fire, we hold fast to him that we are composed and strong and filled with hope and we don't turn back every time a single little cloud pops up in the sky and we're worried that it might turn into a disaster. We learn to go and see those things and go through those things to not steer away. See, if you have a small and shallow faith, a weak faith will produce weak living.

Weak faith will produce weak living. And every time a storm pops up in the sky, you'll huddle down in the boat in the middle of the ocean. Or maybe you'll just sort of turn back to shore, go back to the comfortable shallow waters where you started instead of sailing through.

But God wants us to have deep faith so that we live deep, vibrant, bold lives for him. One of the things that we don't understand and that the disciples don't understand is Jesus didn't get in the boat randomly. He didn't just call him for a day trip. There's purpose to it. The whole point that Jesus is going to have on this is to travel across the sea to get to a man who's possessed by demons, who desperately needs to be delivered from bondage in his life.

And so it is with us that God wants us to be able to travel through the storms of life to get to the kinds of places that he wants us to go. But we will not go to those places until we become the kind of people who will face the storms in life. Not alone, not without Christ. He's always with us. But remembering who's in the boat with us, who's in the storm with us. And in that same way, we're called to not turn back at the first cloud that comes, but to pursue the purposes that God has called us to, to weather the storm.

Storms sometimes don't meet our expectations. Or maybe God doesn't meet our expectations in the midst of the storm. And we're disappointed or we're afraid or we're tired.

Even here the disciples in this storm it as it talks about in verse 24 it says you know so the boat's being swamped by the waves and it says but he was asleep. Jesus is asleep in the storm and so some sometimes it feels like that in our own lives and sometimes in the middle of our storm when the when the world is on fire when we get that bad news when we're just tired and everything feels turbulent in our lives lives in the midst of that storm. We're like, "Where is God? Does he care? Does he hear me? When is he going to send the storm away? Is he going to let us perish in the storm? Is he going to ignore what I'm going through?" And all of these questions begin to swirl around in our mind. We need to remember number one not to lose perspective on who God is and on his promises in the midst of the storm.

We need to hold fast to the character of God. Sometimes God is quiet in the storm to teach us how to trust not with what we see but what he has already told us in his word. To trust in his character to trust in the past storms that he has brought us through and in his faithfulness. And it doesn't mean that he always delivers us out of the storm, but yes, he will. It means that even if we perish in the storm, the promises of God go beyond this world, this life, and the storm itself. The storm is just a temporal thing. It's not permanent. And even if we perish in the storm, God can raise us up on the other side of that storm. He can work on the other side. We need not fear and tremble. And as you walk through your own storm, remember remember even what Paul talks about that we that we uh these momentary light afflictions are producing within us a weight of glory that is beyond all comparison. For we look not to the things which are seen, but to the things which are unseen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things that are unseen are eternal. They're lasting. The storm will not be here forever. It will go away. It will vanish. And even if it takes us down in this life, it will not be in the next life.

And God will at the end of the day be the permanence that we can hold on to when everything else in this life fades away is shaky and passing and fleeting. And part of it in the storm is that we learn to have those lives that look not at the temporal, that not look at just the shakiness, but that hold fast and look to the eternal things and to trust in that. The storms sometimes rebuke our faith or refine it. Because the goal is is to shift our perspective, to mature us, to grow us, to teach us to walk in trust, and to show us that sometimes in the reflection that maybe our faith isn't as deep as we thought it was.

And so there's the question and the question that that that Jesus asks here of the disciples, you know, they come to him and say, you know, hey, and it says in uh verse 25, and when they went and woke him, saying, save us, Lord, we're perishing. And he said to them, why are you afraid? Oh, you of little faith.

Why are you afraid? God never asks questions for information. Adam, where are you? He knows where Adam's at. No, he's asking for reflection so that in the midst like me in that storm, why am I afraid? And it produces this sort of where we take inventory in our own lives and begin to reflect why am I afraid? Do what do I believe? What where is my faith? And if I have this faith, then why am I afraid? And sometimes in life we just need to take inventory like that because in that reflection sometimes you can name the fear. You can name it. See when you reflect in moments of like that you can look at it and say why am I afraid? Because I don't trust. Why am I afraid? Because I don't feel like I'm in control. Why am I afraid? because following you makes me uncomfortable.

And sometimes we need to ask the hard questions or let Jesus ask us the hard questions so that we can take inventory of our own faith and what we really believe just like the disciples need to right now in the midst of this storm. Why are you afraid? Because when God is small and the storms are big, when God is small and the storms of big, you will be driven in life more by the storm than you will by your faith. You will not live the kind of life and have the kind of perspective that Jesus wants of his followers if it's only a life of fear.

God is calling us to live lives of big faith in him, trust, looking with perspective and eternal eyes that see the bigger picture. And we look at the temporary little things of this life and we don't quiver at them. And we name the sin in our heart. We name the unbelief. We name the thing that we need to let go of that presents us from that prevents us from walking with deeper faith and trusting in what he's called us to. And ultimately the questions shift our focus away from the storm to take inventory of ourselves to reflect on our unbelief but ultimately to turn us to God to help us to to to say like who is God in light of this storm and what do I actually believe about him and his promises what he's been in the past and what he will be in this storm and ultimately is to say do I really believe He's as powerful, as good as loving.

And it should make us in that reflection call us to make God bigger. Call us to enlarge our understanding of him. And in that reflection, see the storm really is a temporal thing. It's going away. It won't be here. But at the other side of that storm is God. And he's with us in it. And God's purpose.

And so he has us go through by asking us the hard questions. So how how do these questions though in in the midst of them, how do we build that faith? And what I just really as I thought about this this week, I really thought about Augustine. Augustine actually wrote this book called Confessions. And in Confessions, he actually modeled this. He he asked himself these same sorts of questions. And and there's this one beautiful uh little paragraph there where he says, "Why am I afraid when nothing can separate you, separate from you that which you love?" And I love that line. And he goes on and he talks about all these other things. Why am I angry in light of who God is? Why do I doubt in light of who God is? And so often the questions of life should turn us to reflect on the character of God to shift our perspective so that we might enlarge and trust in Christ for our lives.

Finally, we have the revelation. Jesus uh Jesus displays his power and his authority. We we see right here Jesus has just asked them, "Why are you afraid?" and he's already answered the question because your faith is little and you need to sort of take inventory of that. And then it says he got up and he rose and he rebuked the winds and the sea and there was a great calm. Now I the Matthew's sort of done something where he's bracketed the story in kind of a cool way where he says there was a great storm and now there's a great calm because the power of Christ will supersede even that. the great calm will conquer the great storm that takes place.

That storm, by the way, uh the way that it's described in the Greek is not just like a storm. It it's a word that can also be used for like an earthquake. It's just a complete just sort of calamity that sort of sparks up on the disciples and it's great, but God brings greater peace. And it's almost like a a a movie scene, if you will. You kind of think about if they were filming this and like, you know, the boat's rocking and everybody's screaming and the rain and the wind and and all of a sudden the director goes cut and all of a sudden the stage lights come on and the the wind machine stops and the rain stops and and you know the disciples kind of go and take a coffee break or something like that and and it feels like this temporal moment like you know where Jesus's question all of a sudden gets an answer. Do you see guys? Have you not understood yet who's in the boat with you? Did you not see? Because we've been traveling. Matthew has been unpacking progressively who Jesus is in this. Jesus has power over diseases and sickness. Jesus, as we saw previously, has power over spiritual forces. Demons bow before him. Now Jesus is like, "Have you still not gotten it? I have power over nature, creation. Who do you think made it? Do you not know who's in the boat with you?

Do you not know who's in the boat with you? And the invitation for the disciples is to be revealed like just because I'm asleep, just because things are quiet doesn't mean that I'm not sovereign. And just because the ocean is shaky and your storm is hard and you're going through it, it doesn't mean that I don't have power over it and that I'm not sovereign even in the midst of your storm. I'm gonna have you travel through some storms. I'm not going to always wipe them away immediately, but I will be with you. I will never leave you nor forsake you. And I will use this season and this storm for my purpose and my glory. And it will grow and deepen you. and you will not only serve my purposes for the places I want you to go, but even if you were to perish in it, I would still be glorified. And if you would travel well and be the kind of people who trust me, you would see the incredible witness that is produced through that deep kind of faith.

Um, I I thought back this week of of a church history example of this. um Perpetua uh lived about two well in 202 AD persecution is breaking out in the New Testament church uh early on and uh the Roman Empire, you know, they're just they're they're they're killing Christians. And um one of the easy off that you could get as a Christian is you could just denounce your faith, curse Christ. It was an easy way out and you could live. And uh Perpetua was a was a a Roman noble woman and she was found to be a Christian as well as her servant. And so they were imprisoned and uh and her own father who was not a believer would come and beg her consider your child by the way was at home. She had a small baby. Consider your family. Consider your aging father. And he begged her to recount.

But she had this sort of famous statement. She wrote several things. We believe that she wrote where she said, "Do you see this water vase? It is a vase and you cannot tell it to be anything else but that because that is what it is. I am a Christian and you cannot tell me to be anything else other than which I am. I will not recount."

And Perpetua had this great faith because I'm telling this story to you 1,800 years later about Perpetua and her ability to to have this great faith so that when they took her into the coliseum, she actually believed that the Lord would be with her, that he would give her courage and that he might even give her the strength in this moment. And there are these recordings so much so that as the story is recorded and recounted is that as she was there, one of the animals struck her and she almost seemed to be in a days as if she didn't notice and she sort of got her clothes put back together. And after the beast had sort of not had failed to actually completely kill her, they finally got tired of it and ordered a gladiator to go and kill and him it's recorded quivering to come over and finish the job. She led the sword to her throat and died. And her servant has the same sort of amazing story of this courage.

Even if the storm were to kill you, if you will have faith and walk through, think about the testimony and the witness. Think about the people who saw her faith and came to Christ through that. And God be glorified for it.

And God works his purposes because ultimately he wants to change our perspective about the storms of life so that we will not enter them and cower and turn back or lay shaking in the bottom of the boat, but to see it as this temporal thing on the way to the glory of God in our lives so that we might be the kind of people that he calls us to be in this life.

And perspective is such a powerful thing because you can think about in your own life. Remember when you were a child, the things that scared you, that made you afraid. And at some point, you grew older and they didn't make you afraid anymore. Your perspective changed.

And God wants our perspective to change of him, of who he is, to deepen, to mature, to grow, so that at the end of the day, we can become the kind of people he wants us to be.

Smallness of faith leads to smallness of living. You're always going to be either turning back to shore or shivering in the bottom of the boat. But you can have a faith that will guide you through so that you might become the kinds of people. If we're going to be this missional witness to the world, if we're going to represent Christ to the world around, if we're going to glorify God with our lives, if we want to live more deeply for him, then we have to understand that the storms are nothing in the in the sense of who God is. We need to shift our perspective to behold who he is. To look to those eternal things and to remember that all these other things are temporal and fleeting. And it's not to discount them. They're painful. They're hard. But don't forget who's in the boat with you. This is not just best practices. I'm not here to tell you some sort of howto so that you can be a better Christian and sort of, you know, beat the uh the fears and the pains and the storms in your life. I'm here to tell you just remember who's in the boat. Remember the promises of God. Remember like like Jesus's question that he implies.

Are you really afraid? Do you not know who I am? Do you not know the promises? Have you not seen the past things that God has that that I've done and my power and my authority? And don't forget who you are in light of the storm. Don't forget who's you are when you're walking through it. So Jesus invites us. He invites us when to into the boat. He invites us to weather the storm with faith. And at times he will ask us to take inventory in our own lives to name the fear so that we might become the kind of people who see the glory and the power of God. The disciples will f will sail to the other side of the shore. They will still marvel as it says in 27. The men marveled saying, "What sort of man is this that even the winds and the waves obey him?

If our own hearts, we need an answer to that question. We don't need to be puzzled. We should know who he is and who's we are so that we might travel through and be the kinds of people who live bolder, deeper, more sacrificial lives for him and for his glory. Let's pray.