Sermon Tone Analysis
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This Is Amazing Grace
Welcome & Announcements (Sterling)
We Are Family—talk about GroupMe
No TableTalk tonight (VBS begins at 6PM!!!)
Sign up for Aspire/Unreviled ASAP (begins next Sunday)
Scripture Reading (Matthew 8:23-9:8)
Prayer of Praise (God is perfect), Trish Figgers
The Lord My God My Salvation
The Lord is My Salvation
Prayer of Confession (immorality), Josh Winchell
Great is Thy Faithfulness
PBC Catechism #28
What is justification?
We believe salvation is applied to the believer by the grace of God.
In justification, God declares believers righteous in His sight because He has fully forgiven them of their sin and imputed Christ’s righteousness to them.
Pastoral Prayer (Bubba Jones)
SERMON
Once there was a pastor in a very progressive city, where it was not uncommon for people from all walks of life to attend his church.
Including people from the LGBTQ+ community.
Once a lesbian couple attended the church and eventually met with the pastor to talk about church membership.
"Pastor, we love this church and want to join.
But, as you know, we are in this relationship.
Is this going to be a problem?”
The pastor replied, “You’re asking the wrong question.
The right question is ‘who is Jesus?’
“If Jesus is who He said He was, then He demands absolute allegiance.
You must submit everything to Him: your relationships, your sexual identity, your finances, your children, your job, your aspirations, your desires, your dreams, your fears, ... your everything.
“If you agree that Jesus really is the sinless Son of God who demands absolute allegiance from the world, that includes your relationship to each other.
“No matter how much you love each other, you must turn away from what Jesus calls sin if you want to follow Him.
“If you disagree with me about Jesus, then this church isn’t the place for you anyways.
You’re welcome to attend whenever you want, but to truly be one of us you have to submit entirely to who He is.” [1]
If you were with us last week, you listened as Jesus demanded absolute allegiance from His would-be disciples.
This morning Matthew tells us why Jesus can demand absolute allegiance:
Jesus can demand absolute allegiance from the world because He has absolute authority in the world.
Turn to Matthew 8:23
Second set of three miracle stories in chapters 8-9
Three popular stories to teach us about Jesus’ authority
In all three stories Jesus performs a miracle by speaking
Each story ends with the witnesses of the miracle stunned by Jesus’ awesome power
My desire is that we will not merely be stunned by Jesus’ authority, but submit to it.
Three Dimensions Where Jesus has Absolute Authority:
First, Jesus has absolute authority...
1) Over the NATURAL World (8:23-27)
8:23-24a—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
Severe storms are common on the Sea of Galilee
Word for storm is seismos, usually means earthquake (highlighting the severity of the storm)
Mark 4 and Luke 8 say that the boat was filling up with water
But it’s all okay, because Jesus is there... right?
8:24b—... but He was asleep.
Jesus is truly human!
He’s so exhausted (and so at peace) that He’s able to sleep during the storm
Perhaps the disciples try for awhile to deal with the storm without bothering Jesus
After all, at least four disciples were professional fishermen
But eventually, they’ve had all they can take...
8:25-26a—And they went and woke Him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.”
And He said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?”
Jesus literally calls them “little-faiths”
They’re not “zero-faiths.”
If they were, they wouldn’t come to Jesus for help.
But they’re not “strong-faiths” either.
If they were, they wouldn’t be afraid.
Unbeliever: you don’t need great faith to follow Jesus.
Your little faith just needs to be in the right place.
Christian: Jesus won’t disown you for your weak faith, but He does want your faith to grow!
8:26b—Then He rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.
Literally there was a “mega-calm”
Imagine the stark contrast from a mega-storm to a mega-calm
8:27—And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of Man is this, that even winds and sea obey Him?”
Even though the disciples believed Jesus could do something, seeing it with their own eyes was astounding!
Perhaps eventually their minds went to...
Psalm 107:28-29—…they cried 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 hushed.
This Psalm captures the point of this story.
It’s not about our storms, it’s about the Storm-Silencer.
It’s not about you and me, it’s about Jesus.
Matthew’s main point is not to teach us about life’s storms, but to show us Jesus’ absolute authority over the natural world.
But what about our great enemy, Satan, who’s been wreaking havoc on the natural world since the Garden of Eden?
Doesn’t he have authority in the natural world?
And if he does, can we really take comfort in the authority of Jesus?
Yes, because Jesus has absolute authority...
2) Over the SUPERNATURAL World (8:28-34)
8:28—And when He came to the other side, to the country of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men met Him, coming out of the tombs, so fierce that no one could pass that way.
SHOW GALILEE MAP
Many scholars think this miracle occurred in a small village called “Gergesa,” although no Gospel writer mentions this town
Notice the map says “Gerasenes,” which is the place Mark 5 and Luke 8 mention.
But Matthew calls it “Gadarenes.”
CONTRADICTIONS!
Did this miracle take place in the Gerasenes or the Gadarenes?
Yes.
If somebody asks you where you live, what do you say?
If I’m talking to someone completely unfamiliar with this area, I usually say near “Virginia Beach.”
If I’m talking to a Virginian, I’ll say “Hampton Roads.”
And if I’m talking to someone on the Peninsula, I’ll say “Poquoson.”
Those aren’t contradictions.
They’re different ways of referring to the same place.
That’s exactly what the Gospel writers do with this story.
Mark and Luke refer to the region, and Matthew refers to Gadara, the largest city in the region
There’s another alleged contradiction in this story.
Both Mark and Luke only mention one demon-possessed man and Matthew mentions two.
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