Jesus Calms the Storm

Introduction

When I was 14 years old, Hurricane Katrine hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Now, McComb, where I grew up, is almost 100 miles off the coast, so we did not catch the worse of the storm. But, we did catch a horrible portion of the storm.

I remember the wind blowing at such a force that I saw trees cracking and splintering and hurling through the air.

We were without electricity for nearly 3 and a half weeks at my house. Our lives completely stopped.

My dad had a tractor powered generator hooked up to his barn so that he could milk the cows, and he would have people who came by his barn all the time looking for him to fill up buckets of water.

Weather can reduce your life to nothing very quickly.

There is nothing like nature to humble our pride and sense of self-sufficiency.

In the passage today, Jesus and his disciples encounter a storm. Jesus teaches them something about faith in Him.

Luke 8:22–25 “One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.” So they set out, and as they sailed he fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water and were in danger. And they went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm. He said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?””

Explanation

Luke 8:22–23 “One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.” So they set out, and as they sailed he fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water and were in danger.”

Jesus is tired from his teaching ministry. He and his disciples decide to go to the other side of the lake. He falls asleep on the boat.

All of a sudden a small storm blow up on the boat, where the boat is filling with water. They are in serious trouble.

APPLICATION: A storm is a common theme in the Bible. God teaches us something about Himself in the storms of life that He does not teach anywhere else. Our God is even the God of the storm.

Sometimes, God appoints the storm in your life to teach you about His power. Without difficulties, without trials, without stresses and even failures, we would never grow to be what we should become.

I am not telling you that God specifically created a storm in your life.

I am telling you that God uses the storm for His glory in a way that only He can.

I had a friend who was a Godly woman who lost her father to cancer her freshman year of college. She said something about this passage that I will never forget. “God may not have calmed the storm of my life, but He did calmed the storm in me.”

We don’t want the storms, but we do want more of God. So meet God in the storms of your life and watch Him work in your life in ways He never has before.

God strengthens us in the storms. Charles Spurgeon, “The Lord knows how to educate you up to such a point that you can entire in years to come what you could not endure today; just as today He may make you to stand firm under a burden, which, ten years ago, would have crushed you into dust.

Luke 8:24 “And they went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm.”

Jesus is still asleep! The go to where He is sleeping, wake Him up, and tell Him that they are dying. This is not a childish request. These are professional fishermen.

Jesus gets up, rebukes the wind and waves, and the sea grows calm again.

God is the God of nature. Christ is not scared of nature.

The next three weeks, we are going to cover multiple aspects of the fall of Adam and Eve.

Today, we see natural disasters.

Next week, we see the affliction and possession of a man by demons.

The week after that, we are going to see Jesus command over disease.

Jesus is slowly and steadily flexing his muscles against creation, and He is showing that the reason He is doing so is to roll back the chaos that the fall inflicted upon Man.

God is steadily ENDING the things that ail us.

APPLICATION: God’s silence in your distress and difficulty is not His inability or lack of desire to meet your needs.

As a little child, you looked to your parents for your own emotional state.

It didn’t matter how bad the situation was… if dad and mom weren’t scared, then there was no need to be scared.

God is not unbothered by your circumstances in a way that He does not feel the weight of them. God us unbother by your circumstances in that they grant Him no challenge.

Luke 8:25 “He said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?””

“Where is your faith?”

How do we keep our faith in the midst of a trial? How do we remember God the way we are supposed to remember Him?

We have to have the right kind of faith.

David Garland: Metaphoric storms can appear suddenly that shipwreck lives and threaten to scuttle faith. What is required to survive them is not the kind of faith that simply believes that something is true but faith that places complete confidence in God’s providential care and protection whatever the dangers. It trusts that EVEN IF God does not deliver one from the tidal wave that batters one’s life, God will deliver one through it.

I have found that people struggle in several ways when it comes to the storms of life.

We either struggle to move from the hard times to the good times.

When we feel safe, we tend to indulge in sin.

We rely upon our circumstances instead of the Lord.

Or we struggle to move from the good times to the hard times.

We forget God’s goodness in the middle of the storms.

We can get whiney and upset. It is ok to grieve and struggle and suffer, but sometimes, our souls embrace complaining instead of prayerfulness.

We have a prolonged season of suffering that wears us down emotionally, mentally, and physically.

Slowly, we can become entitled to indulgences, because, after all, we are going through a hard time.

God is the reward. He is better.

The winds and water obey Him.

Now, what have we been talking about for this entire chapter?

The parable of the sower and the seeds teaches us how people respond to the word of God.

The parable of the light under a bed tells us about the effectual nature of God’s word in our hearts.

The conversation between Jesus and his disciples tells us about how Jesus views those who obey His words.

They may not have realized the gravity of what they said, but they make a big statement about the word of God.

Invitation

Allied Troops found the following etched into a wall in Cologne, Germany, “I believe in the sun even when it is not shining. I believe in love even when feeling it not. I believe in God even when God is silent.”

Let God handle your circumstances and calm your fears.