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Christ Community Chapel is a church in Hudson, OH, that invites people to reimagine life because of Jesus. Learn more about us at ccchapel.com.
Luke 822 through 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 up,
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 wet 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.
Everybody welcome to seek.
Really, really glad that you're here.
Thanks for coming.
All right.
We are in the seventh week of our ten week
series.
We're calling Jesus the Redeemer.
We are spending
ten weeks moving
through the Gospel of Luke,
and we will finish this series at Easter,
which I am really looking forward to.
And this morning, we're going to look at a
pretty famous passage
where Jesus calms the storm.
And it's in Luke chapter eight.
So if you have your Bibles, you can go
ahead and turn to Luke chapter eight.
If you want to use one of our Bibles,
it's on page 813, page 813.
And I have, loved this passage.
For a long time.
As Zach and I were talking earlier
this week about preaching and,
we, we're saying that
every passage is like a diamond,
and, a sermon only gets to cover one
facet of the diamond, so you can hear
multiple sermons on the same passage
and get something different each time.
It's one of the reasons
I really look forward to this morning,
because throughout the week I've been
learning, new stuff about this passage.
So let me just, walk you through it,
and then I'll give you
the three points
that I want to pull out of this passage.
All right.
So Jesus invites his disciples,
takes him out on the Sea of Galilee
and the Sea of Galilee, by the way,
is, can be misleading
because whenever I think of a sea,
I think of a big body of water. But,
the Sea of Galilee was really a lake,
and it's not even a very big lake like
Lake Erie is 241 miles across.
That's a big lake.
The Sea of Galilee is 13 miles across.
And so it's not a big lake.
It is full of fish.
That's why
so many of the stories in the Bible
are about fishing in the Sea of Galilee.
But on this particular instance, Jesus
was not taking the disciples out to fish.
He was using the boat like a water taxi,
just to take them from one side
of the lake to the other so they wouldn't
have to walk all the way around.
Now Lake Erie is,
or the Sea of Galilee is small.
It's also shallow,
but the thing that makes it so unique
is that it's below sea level.
It's like 200ft below sea level,
which means that it's very susceptible
to, sudden and fierce storms.
And the disciples find themselves
in this sudden and fierce storm.
And one of the details
that we have is that Jesus was asleep,
which will be important.
And you need to know
that the boat was not very big.
So I don't want you to get in your head
like a houseboat
where he could go below deck
and there was a place to sleep there.
I'll mention that later on, but
Jesus is asleep, and,
the disciples are scared to death.
Literally.
They think they're going to die
and they wake Jesus up.
And in this passage they say,
master, master, we are perishing.
And the
gospel of Mark tells the same story.
And at least one of the disciples
was a little more pointed
when they were shaking Jesus awake.
And he says, don't you even care
that we are about to die?
Jesus wakes up and then it says that he
he rebukes the wind and the raging
waves, and everything stops.
And then Jesus has a question
for his disciples.
And the question is simply,
where is your faith?
And the story ends with the disciples
at least as afraid at the end of the story
as they were
at the beginning of the story,
because by the end of the story,
they have a question of their own.
And the question is, who is this?
That even the wind and the waves obey him?
All right, here are the three points
that I want to pull out
as we look at the facet,
this facet of this diamond of a passage,
I want to look at the storm,
the surprise and the question.
That's it.
The storm, the surprise and the question.
You need to know when Jesus was taking
the disciples out on the Sea of Galilee,
he wasn't just going to teach them
something.
The story made it into the Bible,
which means that Jesus was doing
that whole thing to teach you something,
to teach me something.
So Jesus takes them out
and they get hit by this unexpected storm.
And I say unexpected because
at least half of the disciples
were professional fishermen.
So you have to know that
just out of habit,
before they ever stepped into a boat,
they looked around.
They looked at the horizon.
They looked at the clouds,
and they decided it was okay
to go out on the lake.
And so they get in
and they get hit by this storm.
And I found it in my own life.
The the worst storms are the storms
I don't see coming
that I never saw coming.
And, you know,
I know this was a physical storm,
but a storm is a great metaphor
for the unpredictability,
for the insecurity of all of our lives.
We all know,
you know, that you are one phone
call away from a storm.
You are one doctor's visit away
from the worst storm you've ever been in.
One car ride away from a storm.
And this is one boat
ride away from a storm.
Storms come.
There's a psychiatrist named Scott
Peck about 25 years ago.
Wrote a bestselling book called The Road
Less Traveled, and I think it became
a bestselling book, in part
because of the way he starts the book.
He starts the book
with a three word sentence,
and the three word
sentence is just this life is a difficult,
life is difficult.
And his premise is that the sooner
we understand and actually accept
that life is difficult,
the easier it becomes.
You know, I'm going to get to my second
point in a minute, which is the surprise.
But the one thing
we should never be surprised
that is when we find ourselves
in the middle
of a storm.
Particularly
if you've ever read the Bible.
Right?
Because when you read the Bible,
every character in the Bible
goes through storms Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,
Joseph gets sold into slavery
and then he gets thrown into prison.
Moses goes against Pharaoh,
then out in the wilderness.
He's almost put to death
by his own people.
You got David.
You got Daniel in the lion's den. You.
Elijah, Elijah, Peter, Paul, Mary.
You see what he did there, right?
Everybody is in a storm.
It's always a bit discouraging to me
when I find out that a person who was a
Christian
has abandoned their faith
because they found themselves in a storm,
right? Jesus?
In John chapter 16,
at the end of the chapter,
he's talking to his disciples,
and he says this
I have said these things to you,
that in me you may have peace.
In the world you will have tribulation.
But take heart.
I have overcome the world.
Jesus says,
you're going to have tribulation.
That's another word for storm.
Listen, don't pit those two things
against each other.
Don't think if you have Jesus,
you won't go through storms.
Don't think
if you're going through a storm
you don't have Jesus.
That's at least one of the
reasons we have the story,
right?
Because this time, Jesus,
they were right with Jesus.
This isn't one of those times
where they're on where Jesus is
on the shore and they're out in the boat,
kind of far away from Jesus.
Now, to be sure, there are some storms
you can get into on your own
when you're far away from Jesus.
I remember years ago
sitting with a young woman in my office,
she was probably in her late teens.
She was pregnant, she was single,
she was crying, and she was saying to me,
I, I don't understand
why God would do this to me.
And I had to explain to her that her
boyfriend probably had more to do with it
than God.
Right? There are things
that we can get ourselves,
but this isn't one of those times.
Jesus was right there,
and they find themselves in a storm
that scares them to death.
And that brings me to my second point,
which is the surprise.
And the surprise is that Jesus is asleep.
He's there, but he's asleep.
And that really frustrates the disciples,
which is understandable, right?
If they had been through storms before,
they were professional fishermen.
Even the ones that weren't
grew up around the Sea of Galilee.
They knew about storms, but they'd never
been through a storm with Jesus.
And I think they probably had expected
more from Jesus.
Like maybe they expected him to tell them
before they got the boat.
There's a storm coming,
or maybe stop the storm
when it was just starting to blow.
Or maybe when it's ready to give them some
advice, tell them what they should do,
but instead
he's asleep.
And I told you that,
you know, the boat wasn't very bad.
When my wife Karen, and I were in Israel,
we went to a museum and they had, a boat
that was preserved from that time,
a fishing boat
that was used in the Sea of Galilee
2000 years ago.
And we were both shocked
at how small the boat was.
It wasn't as big as this stage.
We wondered how you could fit 13 people
in that boat,
let alone have one of them sleeping.
All right, so, Jesus, is this how tired
could he have been to be asleep in the
middle of the storm, out on the lake?
You know, I,
when I go on a long car ride with my wife,
I drive for as long as I can.
And then when I'm tired, like, I'll switch
to the passenger seat and she'll drive.
But if she and I.
If I fall asleep, if she even taps
the brake, right, I wake up with a jolt.
You might do the same.
Jesus is in a tiny boat.
It's rocking so much.
It's letting in so much water that
the fishermen think they're going to die.
And he's still asleep.
And I have to believe it's
not just because he was tired.
He's trying to.
This is part of what he's doing to try
to teach you something.
Try to teach me something.
Because if you've ever been in a storm,
in a real storm,
where you have,
you know, I don't know, lost a child,
had a miscarriage,
and had your marriage dissolve,
got a terrible diagnosis for yourself
or somebody that you love.
If you have ever been
through a real storm, then you have
at least thought
what that one disciple
said out loud in the gospel of Mark.
Don't you even care?
God? Don't you even care
that I'm in the middle of the storm?
Okay, a couple things.
One is up here in Northeast Ohio.
We have a lot of cloud cover.
That's probably an understatement.
And I have a pair of sunglasses in my car.
I can go weeks
without ever putting on them.
I also have a couple of, grandchildren
that are still toddlers.
And if, during a day where it was cloudy
or stormy,
if one of them asked me if they said,
hey, Papa, where does
where does the sun go?
I would say, oh no, the sun still there.
Clouds don't make the sun go away.
The sun is always there.
A storm doesn't make the clouds
or the cloud.
The storm doesn't make the sun go away.
I mean, if the sun ever really went away,
then the whole world would disintegrate
and you'd become a popsicle.
I think I scare my grandkids sometimes.
But sometimes I need to
remind myself in the middle of a storm
that God doesn't go anywhere.
If God ever quit caring
or ever went away,
the entire universe would disintegrate.
That's one thing.
The other thing is
that the disciples are frustrated
with Jesus because of his timing.
Like they expected Jesus to act sooner.
Jesus waits until the boat is sinking
before he does
anything.
And I have to be honest,
after 40 years of ministry,
getting used to God's
timing is still really difficult.
He's always God is always late.
He just seems like he's late.
And there's something I've learned after
these 40 years is that his
timing is not my timing.
And thank goodness it's not.
Who in their right
mind would want to hurry?
God, do I really think that I know
more about a storm
and what it's supposed to do than than
he does?
Do I really think that I understand
which storm I should be in,
which storm I should not be in?
Listen,
I wouldn't hurry somebody who was working
on the brakes of my car, let alone
try to hurry the God of the universe,
who knows everything about everything.
And that brings me to my final point,
which is the question
that.
So Jesus takes his disciples
out on the Sea of Galilee.
They get into this fierce storm
and they they shake Jesus awake.
And the passage says that he wakes up
and he rebukes the wind
and the raging waves.
It's almost comical.
It's like like he he sits up and he goes,
hey, hey, cut it out.
Right?
Like like a dad who's talking to toddlers
that are bickering,
but unlike the toddlers who are bickering,
the wind and the waves obey Jesus
and everything stops.
And Jesus is
looking at the disciples
who find themselves
in a calm with the boat gently rocking.
They're still soaked to the bone, the hair
matted back, their eyes still wide.
The heart's still beating.
And Jesus says,
where is your faith?
He doesn't say,
why didn't you wake me up earlier?
He says, where is your faith?
It's such an interesting question.
It's a it's a question
that you can actually
look at two different ways,
both of them could be true.
The first, Jesus could be saying,
what have you been putting
your faith into?
What did you think
was going to save you from the storm?
Did you think the boat was good enough?
Did you think your own strength
was going to be strong enough?
Did you think the expertise of the best
fisherman on this boat?
Were you hoping for a rescue boat?
Where were you putting your faith?
It could be one way.
You're probably like me, I.
I try to prepare for as many storms
as I can.
I have contingency plans.
That's why I have a savings account.
So I have a retirement account.
So I have a, you know, a cabinet at home
full of medicine.
It's why I try to exercise,
try to eat kind of.
Well, right.
All those are just trying to make sure
I keep
as many storms away as I possibly can.
And what Jesus is telling the disciples,
if that's the way
he's asking the question, is, don't
you realize,
didn't you know that a storm was
going to come that was going to be so big
that nothing you could put your faith in
would be good enough, bigger?
You can't get a big enough boat.
You can't have enough expertise.
You can't have enough money
in your savings account.
You can't prepare enough
that a storm is coming.
We need something bigger than the storm.
You need the Lord
of the storm.
That's one way.
The other way, Jesus.
When he says, where is your faith?
He could have been saying, you guys,
where's your faith?
This is the time to pull it out
in the middle of a storm.
Put it on me.
No, don't you see?
I've been.
I'm right here with you.
You've seen what I'm capable of.
This is Luke, chapter eight.
This is our seventh week.
You know, we have already seen.
And the disciples had already seen
Jesus heal people, cast out demons, raise
the dead.
Jesus is saying, don't
you see who you're with?
Don't you know what I'm capable of?
Where's your faith?
Take it out in the middle of a storm.
Put it on me. Always think of,
John,
chapter 11 with the story of Lazarus.
It's the same kind of story.
Like Mary and Martha send word
to Jesus that Lazarus is sick.
Jesus takes his time.
He gets there wildly late because Lazarus
has been dead for four days.
By the time Jesus gets there,
Mary and Martha
both say, where have you been?
If you had been here,
what they're saying is, you are so late.
Jesus goes to the tomb.
As the stone rolled away
and calls Lazarus out of the grave
by name.
Right?
I love that story,
but I always wish that I knew more
about what Lazarus
his life was like after that.
That you I just think
he'd be a really tough guy to rattle.
Like, what are you going to threaten
Lazarus with?
I mean, what would he ever be
be afraid of?
Is there any storm
that would come into Lazarus?
His life,
where he'd be going? Where are you?
I don't think so.
You know why?
Because he'd seen
what Jesus was capable of.
He'd gone through the worst
possible storm,
and Jesus called his name.
You know, whatever.
I'm in a storm now.
And I begin to doubt
and to wonder where God is.
I don't go to the.
When I go to the Bible,
I don't go to the Psalms, to a comfort
psalm,
which is fine if that's where you go.
You know where I go.
I go to the resurrection.
That's why I'm looking forward
to Easter so much,
because the resurrection reminds me
of what
Jesus is capable of.
And I always think,
if I really believe that
there's so much evidence
for the resurrection,
and if I really believe that,
and I really understand
what Jesus is capable of,
then I feel like
I can live my life
the way Lazarus must lived his life
would be really hard
to rattle me,
because I know when I go through
the last and great storm.
That I'm going to hear him call my name.
And when I hear him call my name,
everything will be call.
Everything will be good.
So if you're going through a storm
right now and in a crowd
this size, I know there are plenty of you
who are going through a storm.
Some of you may enter into a storm
this week that you don't see coming.
Can I just tell you this
with all your contingency plans
and everything that you
have to try to keep you, there is going
to be a storm that is bigger
than any plan you
have, than anything
you can put your faith in.
What you need in that kind of storm
is the Lord of the storm.
You need to remind yourself
of what Jesus is capable of
and that he is right there with you.
And when the greatest storm comes,
what you will hear
is Jesus calling your name so great
is Jesus, our Redeemer, so wonderful,
the Lord of the storm.
Would you pray with me,
father in heaven? Thank you.
Thanks for this story. I love this story.
I pray for every person here
that is in the middle of a storm
right now.
I pray that you would,
remind them of who you are
in the middle of the storm.
You never disappear.
You never go away.
You never quit caring.
And we know that because you sent Jesus
and we have
the evidence for the resurrection.
So we can always remind ourselves
of what Jesus is capable of,
and that one day
we will hear him call our name.
And the storms will be no more.
Thanks.
Thanks for giving us
such a wonderful Redeemer
and Savior and we pray this in his name.
Amen.