Sermon Tone Analysis

Stormy Sea

Ironically, the man was rescued off the shores of Africa on March 10, 1748.

He was escaping slavery.

By the providence of God, his dad, a British captain, put word out that his son was lost somewhere in Africa and a friend of his dads saw a fire burning on a the coastline.

He sent a John boat to investigate it only to find it was indeed his friends son.

A few days later, a massive sea storm threatened to destroy the ship.

The man recalls in his biography,

“That 10th of March, is a day much to be remembered by me; and I have never allowed it to pass unnoticed since the year 1748.

For on that day the Lord came from on high and delivered me out of deep waters.”

“The storm was terrific: when the ship went plunging down into the trough of the sea few on board expected her to come up again.

The hold was rapidly filling with water.

As the man hurried to his place at the pumps he said to the captain, “If this will not do, the Lord have mercy upon us!” His own words startled him.

“Mercy!” he said to himself in astonishment, “Mercy!

mercy!

What mercy can there be for me?

This was the first desire I had breathed for mercy for many years!”

About six in the evening the hold was free from water, and then came a gleam of hope.

“I thought I saw the hand of God displayed in our favour.

I began to pray.

I could not utter the prayer of faith.

I could not draw near to a reconciled God and call him Father.

My prayer for mercy was like the cry of the ravens, which yet the Lord does not disdain to hear.”

It took a storm at sea for the man to begin to see God.

He lived much of his life, apart from a faithful Christ-loving mother who taught him the scriptures as a child, as if God did not exist.

But in his hour of desperate need, his mother’s God and prayer, flooded his heart and opened his eyes to see Jesus as more than just a Jewish Rabbi.

We see the same thing in Luke 8:22-25.

Jesus is with his disciples.

He leads them into a boat to cross the Sea of Galilee.

While they are traveling, a massive storm hits them.

The disciples are beside themselves believing they are about to drown.

They turn to Jesus to find his resting in the stern of the boat.

They wake Jesus to tell him they are all going to drown.

Jesus rebukes the winds and seas and tells them they are all going to live.

At that moment, their perspective of Jesus changed.

They entered the boat believing that Jesus was a rabbi.

Now, at this moment, Jesus is more than a rabbi.

What are we to make of this?

What was Jesus doing in the life of his disciples?

How does knowing the difference between Jesus being a rabbi and the Son of of God matter to you in 2023?

Jesus uses difficulty to give you a greater perspective of his sovereignty so you will trust him with your life.

Two Main Ideas

Jesus is God

The main idea of this passage is, Jesus is God.

He is not merely a demigod, who is half human and half God.

He is fully human and fully God.

This is the perspective that the disciples lack about Jesus.

In chapter eight, Luke is revealing the identity of Jesus.

He is not just another prophet or wise Jewish sage.

He is the Son of God.

Luke reveals Jesus’ identity with three stories that show He has power over nature, demons, disease and death.

He is able to control, even conquer, the things only God can control and subdue.

The disciples, however, do not see Jesus this way.

In their mind he is special.

He is a good teacher.

He is a man of God, but he is not God’s Son.

He is not fully divine.

You gather this by Jesus’ rebuke and their response to him in,

Had they truly understood who Jesus was and his power, they would‘ve have trusted them with their life, especially when the storm was raging around them.

In Jewish tradition, only God had true power over the seas and the wind.

God

The Psalmist says,

God governs his creation by his power And uses it for his will; whether he he floods the earth in his judgment (Gen 8-9), or he redirects a rebellious prophet named Jonah with a large fish (Jonah 1-4).

For Jesus to rebuke the winds and the seas is to display the kind of power only God can display.

Jesus is Sovereign

This makes sense in light of how Paul describes Jesus in his letter to the Colossians

Jesus subdues and sustains all of creation, visible and invisible, and all authorities in heaven and earth, and all of creation was made by him, and through him, and for him, and he is like the superglue that keeps everything together.

Of course Jesus can tell the winds to be still and the seas to stop raging.

He is God and He is the Lord over his creation.

I don’t know when it happens, or even necessarily how it happens, but at some point in your walk with Jesus, you forget who he is and what he is capable of doing in your life.

At some point your religion becomes routine.

Your heart grows cold, and you you loose confidence in the power of Jesus Christ to change lives, even the most broken life.

Jesus becomes more of a man and less of God.

You need a change of perspective.

You can tell when Jesus is more your wise teacher and less of your Savior by your grumbling and disputing.

You become critical of God’s people and his church.

You become impatient with God’s timing and the way he is choosing to work.

You begin to loose victory over sins in your life that you’ve thought you were past.

Your prayer life is hit or miss and your Bible reading is as dry as Texas on the fourth of July.

Jesus cannot be just a man to you.

He must be the Son of Man, the Son of God, the Messiah, the Second Person of the Trinity, if you are going to have waiving faith.

Brothers and sisters, if this describes you, you need a change of perspective.

And God cares about your faith and your perseverance that he will do whatever it takes to open your eyes to behold His Son properly.

Just as God brought John Newton into a storm to open his eyes to see Jesus, and just as Jesus brought his disciples into a storm to reveal himself as God, so he will do for you and our church, sot hat we will trust his sovereignty and worship him properly.

In other words,

Because Jesus is the Sovereign Lord, he can bring you into the storm, sustain you through the storm, and transform you by the storm.

Jesus brings you to the storm (Luke 8:22).

You need to notice who is leading the discussion in verse 22. Jesus moves his disciples into the boat.

He tells them, “Let’s go across the lake that is called the Sea of Galilee.”

The disciples comply with Jesus and set out across the lake.

The disciples do seem to be alarmed by the weather, which, by speculation (give it a grain of salt and no more) it might have been clear skies and smooth seas.

Peter and his brothers were experienced fisherman.

He the weather been brewing, as outspoken as Peter was, he might have said something.

The Sea of Galilee was surrounded by hills and gorges.

Sudden wind storms would appear out of nowhere stirring up the lake.

Most fisherman from Capernaum would stay close to the shoreline.

The storm was coming that would bring impenitent death to the disciples.

To be fair, there is some discussion as to whether Jesus knew the storm was coming or if it just appeared.

Either way, the point is Jesus was in control of the storm the entire time.

There was not a moment where Jesus lost control of his creation.

The text does not say, “knowing a storm was coming, he put his disciples in a boat.”