\"The\" Eternal Question: Luke 8:22-25

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On Halloween, you should know. Snowstorm in October?

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Close. The Halloween nor 'easter of 1991 and you know it probably because there was a book and a movie called the perfect what?

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Storm. And it was called the perfect storm because three things happened all at the same time to make it not just a storm but the perfect storm.

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Hurricane Grace was there. Energy was coming across from the

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Great Lakes and there was an old funnel system around here and together we had things like 100 -foot waves in the ocean.

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Winds blasted a hundred miles an hour and nine people died including the swordfish boat folks.

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Six of them named the, does if someone knew that was that storm was coming and then brought you out into it?

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They knew for sure it was going to happen and they brought you to the middle of the storm. What if someone could make that storm happen and bring you into the middle of it?

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What would you think about them? Take your Bibles please and turn to Luke chapter 8 and we're going to see something pretty similar.

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Jesus knew the storm was coming and he brought the men into it. More than that he made the storm happen and he brought the men into it and it's really the perfect storm in Luke chapter 8.

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We're in verses 22 through 25. Four small verses with hurricane -like effects.

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What if Jesus sends people into storms? What would be the purpose?

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Why would he do such a thing? And the answer is to test people's faith, to strengthen them, to have them lean on him more wholly.

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Our outline today in these four simple verses are pretty simple. We're going to look at the storm and then two crucial questions.

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The storm, the first three verses and then the last verse, two questions. One question is from Jesus and the other question is from the disciples.

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So one storm, two questions. And you'll find those questions are just as relevant today as they were 2 ,000 years ago on the

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Sea of Galilee. Jesus sending a storm so that people could understand the strength, as many say, of the anchor.

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How do we know our anchor is secure? Well when it holds the test, when it holds firm.

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When I was a kid and I was in Nebraska and we were in fifth grade, let's say, I still remember my professor's name,

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Dan Sanfilippo. And as I've told you before, I looked up Dan Sanfilippo online several years ago, called the

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Dan Sanfilippo in Omaha, Nebraska and said, are you Dan Sanfilippo, the fifth grade teacher? Yes, I am.

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My name is Mike Ebendroth. He said, how's your sister Marcy and your brother Luke doing? So he had a very good memory.

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But once in a while he would say things like, take out a piece of paper and a pencil. We are having a pop quiz.

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We're having a pop test. Oh, pop tarts I could do in Nebraska, but not pop tests or pop quizzes.

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That's exactly kind of what's happening here in Luke chapter 8. It's one thing to say, Jesus, you're a great preacher.

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I see you preach to others. I see you cast out demons of other people. I've seen you heal other people.

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But what if you're the one in the middle of the problem? It's one thing to say,

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I see Jesus over there doing things for other people, rescuing other people out of their problems.

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But what about me when I'm in the center of it? And so Jesus gives these disciples a pop test, a pop quiz, if you will.

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In Luke, the gospel of Jesus, according to Luke, we're starting to move from Jesus's preaching to demonstrations of Jesus's power.

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Oh, they'll still be preaching, but you'll see Luke moving over. Jesus has been preaching. We looked at the parable of the sower, of the soils.

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We looked at the lamp that's hid under a bushel. We saw that. We're supposed to take care how we listen to Jesus, but now we're moving to power.

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There's sections of power here. Power over nature. Power over sickness. Power over death.

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Power over demons. That's what we're gonna look at the next four weeks. Today, we're gonna see power over nature, and then we'll move into power over demons, power over sickness, power over death.

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All for you to say to yourself, there's no one like Jesus. He has to be the eternal God. I am a sinner, and to have my sins forgiven, there's only one who could forgive my sins, and that is

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Jesus. And he has power over sin, death, hell, Satan, and everything else. Here, he even has power over nature.

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Who has authority over nature? Who has the power to say to the seas, be calm, and it's calm?

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Luke wants you to be certain. Remember Luke chapter 1 verse 4? I want you to be certain about who

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Jesus is, so that if you never have believed before, you believe today, and if you are believing, you keep believing.

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And you say, why the emphasis? Remember earlier in Luke 8, Jesus's mother and brothers had some doubts.

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Mark tells us that they think Jesus is kind of off his rocker, and they better go grab him before he just, who knows what.

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And so if Mary and his brothers, his half -brothers, are wondering, who really is

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Jesus? Are we sure he's the Messiah? There's some doubts going on. The writer doesn't want you to have any doubts, and so we see here

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Jesus calming this storm in Luke chapter 8 verses 22 through 25.

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Let's take a look at the storm first, and then the two questions. The storm is found in verses 22 through 24.

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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.

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So they set out, and as they sailed, he, Jesus, fell asleep.

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And a windstorm came down on the lake. They were filling with water and were in danger, and they went and woke him, saying,

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Master, Master, we are perishing. And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm.

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Verse 22, they launch out. That's what you do. You launch the boat. Luke doesn't really tell us what day it is, but Mark tells us it's the same day that he's preaching the parables.

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It's the same day that the Pharisees say he's blaspheming. It's the same day that Jesus, to get away from the crowds, got into a boat, and they pushed him back a little bit, so he could just kind of have a breather.

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It's that day. It's a very busy day. You know,

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Matthew, Mark, and Luke give us different viewpoints of the same things that are happening, and so once in a while,

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I'll say something about Matthew and Mark today, because it gives us other insight. And Mark's insight is, other boats were following, and Jesus says, not kind of in English, we say, let's go do this.

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This is the language of authority and command. Let us, I'm commanding you, take me over to the other side of the lake.

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It's a busy day. It's a long day. Why would Jesus want to go to the other side?

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Well, maybe you say he wants to see the other side. Maybe he needs to get some rest.

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That'd be fine. I know he knows he's going to have ministry on the other side, right?

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There's going to be a man possessed by demons named Legion. But besides rest, besides ministry, there's a little lesson that the disciples need to learn.

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This is called a field trip. This is called Awana Council Time, the best council time ever in Awana.

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We're going to have an object lesson, but you men are going to be at the center of the object lesson. We'll see if you really trust me.

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To what degree do you trust me? Do you trust me when your life's on the line?

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Now, Mark says they took Jesus just as he was. Here's what happened. He's in the boat preaching on the sand, you know, at the beach, and it's like he gets out of one boat and gets into the other, just as he was,

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Mark says. And they're going to do something that they've done hundreds of times. They're fishermen.

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They go to the other side of the sea. I don't know if you know this, but preaching makes you tired.

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Some of you have taught, even if you're not preacher, that you're teaching a Sunday school class, and you think, boy, that just took a lot of mental energy, and you get tired.

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And so what does Jesus do? He falls asleep. Can you imagine? Jesus falls asleep.

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I think this is the only place in the Bible that says Jesus slept. Now, did Jesus sleep every night? Well, maybe he had a few nights that he didn't sleep because he was busy, but Jesus, truly human, slept, hungered.

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And here Jesus falls asleep, and what's verse 23 say? A windstorm came down. You bet it did, because Mount Hermon is 9 ,200 feet above sea level at the highest, and the

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Sea of Galilee is 700 feet below sea level, so we've got 10 ,000 feet difference, and down comes the storm.

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The wind came down. The storm came down. The cold air comes down, funneling, vortexing.

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Is that a word? In a vortex -like manner. And they were filling with water and were in danger.

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Matthew says they were covered with waves. The waves are bigger than the side of the boat, in other words. Filling with water.

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And Mark says it's evening. How late it is, how dark it is, we don't know, but it's evening.

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This fierce gale comes down, and the way people would talk about what would happen on the

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Sea of Galilee with these fierce gales, they would say things like, topsy -turvy. They would say things like, furious.

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They would say things like, great. One writer said a couple hundred years ago, this scientist, he said, small as the

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Lake of Galilee is, and placid in general, as a molten mirror, many have repeatedly seen it quiver and leap and boil like a cauldron.

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So this is not just some small little waves. This is, a lot of stuff could happen on the Sea of Galilee.

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We went a few years ago, some of you went with us, and it was one of those sunset cruises from Tiberias out in the

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Sea of Galilee, and it was calm, and it was wonderful, and it was beautiful. But at any minute, this could really get crazy.

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Matthew says, behold, and then he uses a word for the storm that's different than Luke. The word he uses is an earthquake.

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It's an earthquake. So I've been in earthquakes before. I heard if you're driving a car in a big earthquake, it feels like you've got a flat tire.

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I've never been in a boat during an earthquake, but I could just imagine all the churning, and all the stuff going on, and just this jolt, and the aftershocks, and the sound.

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We don't, we don't hear the sound here, but you can imagine what the sound must be like. Filling with water, treacherous, dangerous.

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Yes, they're fishermen, but they're in danger. That's what the text says. And the

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Lord hurled a great wind on the sea, and there was a great storm on the sea, so that the ship was about to break up.

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What did I just quote from? Jonah. Sound familiar? Now, Jonah was sleeping for the wrong reason, right?

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He's disobeying the Lord, trying to run, and he's kind of sleeping. Jesus is sleeping for all the right reasons.

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He's truly human, and to be our Redeemer and Savior, he has to be human. And here he is asleep.

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Are you encouraged by Jesus when he sleeps? Are you encouraged that he's sleeping at all?

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That he gets hungry, the incarnate Jesus suffers pain, gets tired? I hope you're encouraged, because you need to have a real, true man to be a representative, and here we see that.

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Sometimes you'll look at the Bible, and you'll say, I see Jesus's glory and divinity in this passage, and you say, wow, he's the

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God -man. Stress on God. Sometimes you'll see Jesus learning, and growing, and getting older, and you think, oh,

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I see his humanity, and you go, I'm thankful because he can be my representative. But in this passage, you're gonna see both.

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You see the humanity of Jesus to be our representative, and you see the deity of Jesus to be our powerful substitute.

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Now, when I was growing up, I would often oversleep my alarm, and so I'd have to have alarms across the room.

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As our family got bigger, dad and grandpa built my room in the basement. It was very dark down there, and you could just sleep all day, sleep all night, as sometimes 16 -year -old boys do.

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And I remember I'd have to set my alarm far away, so that I have to get up. And sometimes if your leg falls asleep, and you try to get the alarm shut off, down you go.

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But that's another story. When I was little, I didn't wake up to the alarm. My mother would give me what she called the water treatment.

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I did not say water board treatment. That would not be good. We called DSS. Water treatment.

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And she would bring down a little thing of water in a cup, and if I wouldn't wake up, she would begin flicking water on my face. The water treatment.

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It's hard to sleep when there's water in your face. It's hard to sleep while you're in water. And here's

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Jesus, so tired from ministry, so exhausted from preaching. They're in danger.

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The water is coming in, filling up the boat, and Jesus is sleeping. Mark says that he's got his head on a cushion.

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Sometimes what you would do is, if you had a guest in the boat, and they're not a fisherman, you have a little cushion that they could sit on for the stranger, for somebody who was kind of, you know, somebody you wanted to impress.

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And Jesus uses it as a pillow. He's truly man, and he's truly

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God. Asleep on the cushion. The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head but on a cushion.

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That sounds like another sermon. I mean, if Jesus was in the boat, and he was awake, at least he could be saying things like, all hands on deck, get the buckets out, let's get going, stern, port, bow.

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Let's rig the sails, put them down, put them up, whatever they would say. Get going, men.

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Be strong. We're gonna make it. Hang in there. Be of great courage. But he's sleeping.

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Did you know, regularly in the Bible, especially with Israel, they were in a bind, and they would call out to God, saying, would you please wake up?

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Now, is God always awake? Of course. But the language they would use is, we're hurting.

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We need your attention. Could you wake up God? Listen. Psalm 35. Awake and rouse yourself for my vindication, for my cause, my

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God and my Lord. From the human perspective, it seems like you're sleeping, God. It seems like you've forgotten your people.

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It seems like you don't care. And so, rise up, wake up, God, and do something. That's the language.

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Psalm 44. Awake. Why are you sleeping, O Lord? Of course,

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God doesn't sleep. God the Father doesn't sleep. Only incarnate Son would sleep. But the idea is, we need help, and it seems like you're not doing anything.

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Psalm 59. Awake. Come to meet me and see. Look at my problems.

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I've got problems, Lord. Come and see. And here's

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Jesus, sleeping. Listen to Hebrews 2.

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Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

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For surely it's not the angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore Jesus had to be made like his brothers in every respect.

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We're talking about humanity, being human. So that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation or assuage

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God's wrath for the sins of the people. Listen. For because he himself,

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Jesus, has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. Jesus was with them.

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I'll never leave you nor forsake you. You could think about that. I think of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego when they got thrown into the fire in Nebuchadnezzar's fire.

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The text says, I see four men unbound walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt.

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And the appearance of the fourth is like the Son of God, or the Son of God's. In the middle of the trial, here's

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Jesus in the boat, but he is sleeping. So what'd they do? What would you do?

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Verse 24, And they went and woke him, saying, Master, Master, we're perishing. Now Matthew, and Luke, and Mark might say things like,

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Master, Master, or Lord, Lord, or Teacher. Master, Master, said twice for repetition, for emphasis, for when you really need some help.

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You're the commander. That's what Master means. You're the one who has authority. That's what Master means. You're the one that can help us.

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We're in an urgent, dire situation. Matthew says, the men said, Save us.

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Not save our sins, but save us. We're gonna die. We're going to drown. We're perishing.

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The commentator Hendrickson paraphrases this, Do we mean so little to you, Jesus? With death staring us in the face?

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How can you sleep? Don't you care? We're all swallowed up by the angry deep. We're dying.

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Okay. At least they knew Jesus could help. I'll give them that.

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At least they knew this man in the boat, sleeping, can help us. They understood that much about Jesus.

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Their faith needs to grow, and the Gospels continually show us how their faith needs to grow, and grow, and grow, and get better, and better, and stronger, and stronger.

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But at least they know Jesus can help. I mean, after all, they're the expert sailors.

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You're supposed to smile at that. This is like when Lazarus died, and the ladies are saying,

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Lord, if you'd been there, my brother wouldn't have died. Lord, if you were to be awake, you could help. I can imagine their voices were loud.

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They're yelling. They're shouting. I don't think it's wrong to say here to you, dear congregation, when you're in these kind of trials, the

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Lord has a way of using these trials to push us to the only one who could help, the

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Lord Jesus. When I've had my personal trials, and I finally come to the end of myself,

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I say, essentially, Lord, you have my attention. I'm listening. I'm learning.

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I'm not gonna put my faith in anything else. I need you. And many of you have been in that exact same situation.

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There's been days where you're in such a position you have no other choice but to turn to Him. What did

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Jesus do? Verse 24, He awoke and rebuked the men.

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Sorry, He awoke and rebuked the wind. Isn't that interesting? And the raging waves.

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You're gonna have to rebuke both if you want calm. You can't just rebuke the wind only, or the waves only. And they ceased and there was a calm.

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I mean, who does that? Just try that sometimes. Even to stand up and rebuke.

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Like, you know, when I'm thinking of rebuke, Mark calls it, he says to the sea, be muzzled.

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It's almost like you're a wild rabid dog and put a muzzle on it. Some people think that even maybe the sea was demon -possessed, and Jesus, when

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He says to demons, put a muzzle on it, He says the same thing here. But whatever it is, Jesus says, that's enough, and He rebukes it.

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I mean, just go to the ocean today, go to the beach today, after Sunday night service, or go this afternoon, come back for the 5 .30

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service, and just stand there and rebuke the waves. Crazy people do that.

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You don't rebuke the waves. I mean, you can, but nothing's going to happen. I rebuke thee. So Gary and I went kayaking the other day, and I shouldn't have gone, because I knew

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I was going to be teaching this passage soon, so then I'm gonna have to have some crazy story about near drowning and everything else.

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So we go, we go to the Nashua River, and we're gonna go upstream, and there had been the runoff from all the snow the week before, the six inches or whatever.

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We're trying to go upstream first, and the thing pushes me to the side against this tree, and then

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I, moving over to the side, my kayak starts filling up with water, and then I lose my paddle, and I'm like,

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Gary, get my paddle. Then I'm just floating downstream. I don't know what to do. Like, I'm gonna die in some, you know, behind Home Depot in Lemonster.

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I'm dead. Actually, I looked online, and it said you can go a 12 -mile circuitous course from Home Depot Lemonster to Lowe's Lemonster.

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Like, wow, that's a nice trip. So what I did is, I'm just gonna die, and so I just stood up on my kayak, and I said,

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Nashua River, Nashua River, I rebuke you! Calm.

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Of course, I didn't do that. I panicked, and I just jumped out, because I thought

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I could swim, and then I thought, oh, I have a phone in my pocket, because I was going to go down the lazy river on a

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Saturday. The moral of the story is, if Gary invites you to do something, don't do it. That's the story.

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Who stands there and just says, I rebuke you! And the winds and the waves obey.

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Who does that? And the answer is, it has to be the Eternal Son, who took on flesh and dwelled among us.

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It has to be Jesus. He's sleeping. You see

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His humanity. He's rebuking nature, and you see His deity. Truly man, truly

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God. Think, why does the Nicene Creed say, very

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God of very God? It's like for kids to know, yes, He's really, really, really, really God. That's what very

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God of very God means. Listen to Psalm 18. Then the channels of the sea were seen, and the foundations of the world were laid bare at your rebuke,

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O Lord. God just rebukes the water, and it does what it's supposed to do.

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You could even think of going through the Red Sea. Jesus didn't wake up and say, what's going on, boys?

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Gotta wake up. What's happening? You tried everything without me?

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He's not startled. He's not afraid. He's in command. He has authority. He has power.

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He's the creator of the world and all of what we call nature. And He rebukes the wind.

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Mark says, He said, be silent and be gagged or muzzled.

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And what happened? Verse 24, and they ceased, they meaning the wind and the waves, and there was a calm.

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Now, if you just turn off the wind and turn off the waves, it takes a little while for everything to settle.

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But here, Jesus commands both, and it's instantaneously flat. Calm. We've gone from the perfect storm to the perfect calm.

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Instantaneously. With a word. Nothing gradual about this. This is now

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Lake Placid. This is still, serene, quiet. One minute you see is humanity, the next you see is deity.

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Colossians 1, for by Jesus all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.

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All things, including the Sea of Galilee, have been created by Him. And all things, even the

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Sea of Galilee, are created for Him, for His purpose. And He holds all things together.

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The liberals say Jesus is just calming the storm of fear in the disciples' hearts.

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That's such garbage. Takes them into the storm.

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He calms the storm to show who He is to these men. Sometimes what we do in theology is we're like, we have to try to protect

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God somehow. God just permitted this to happen. God just allowed this to happen.

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Oh, there's sometimes language like that in Scripture, but overarching is, God is sovereign and He does everything, and He's sovereign over the storm, and He's sovereign over taking them into the storm.

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It's no comfort if God isn't sovereign over everything. So we've seen the storm, and now we see two questions.

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Verse 25 contains two questions after the storm. One question is from Jesus to the disciples, and it applies to us as well in many cases.

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And the other question is from the disciples to each other. And if you're thinking rightly as you read

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Luke, every reader of Luke is supposed to answer the questions. Both questions are excellent.

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One is from Jesus and one is about Jesus. Verse 25.

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He said to them, where's your faith? They were afraid and they marveled, saying to one another, who then is this that He commands even the winds and water and they obey

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Him? Two questions, where and who? First one is from Jesus.

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Second one, men ask about Jesus. Let's look at the first one. Where is your faith?

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They were afraid and they marveled. There's a little faith here.

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Matthew says, Jesus said to them, men of little faith. But it needs to be expanded.

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It needs to graduate. It needs to be strengthened. They're the ones now in the middle of the problem and they need to be able to trust the

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Lord in every circumstance, no matter what the circumstance. So Jesus says, where is your faith?

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Now D .L. Moody was an evangelistic preacher and a lady went up to D .L. Moody, this is a long time ago, and she said,

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I found a great promise in the Bible, Psalm 56 .3, when I am afraid,

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I will put my trust in you. Good promise? When I'm afraid, I'll put my trust in you. And D .L.

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Moody said, I'll give you a better one. Probably met people like that, that you say something, they always want to one -up you.

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Moody said, I'll give you a better verse than that. Instead of when I'm afraid, I'll put my trust in you, Psalm 56,

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Isaiah 12, behold, God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid.

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Those men shouldn't have been afraid, because Jesus was in the boat. There was no way they were going to die.

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There was no way He was going to die. He was on His messianic mission and He was on His way to the cross eventually and would have to die for the sins of all those who would ever believe, be raised from the dead.

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They were safe whether He was sleeping, whether there was water in the boat. Now I'm certain, like in Luke 5, they're afraid of the

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Sea of Galilee's churning waves. Jesus calms the storm and now they're even more afraid because the

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God of the universe is in the boat with them. I'm sure that's happening here as well. The thrice holy

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God. Just like when Isaiah sees God as it were, he says, woe is me,

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I'm ruined, because I'm a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the

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King, the Lord of hosts. But they shouldn't have been afraid, because Jesus is with them.

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And Jesus is the one that said, let's go to the other side. He ordered them to go to the other side. They were going to make it no matter what.

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And it's not that they lacked info. It's not that they lacked knowledge. They just lacked the trust.

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That trust needed to deepen. And that's exactly what happened here. We can trust the

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Lord God with our lives. Not just other people's sicknesses, but with our very lives.

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And if we can trust him with our lives, then every other smaller thing we can trust him with. Mark says that Jesus said, why are you so timid?

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Why are you being a coward? Cowards. Why is it that you don't have faith?

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Then in verse 25, there's that second question. The first one is from Jesus. Before I get to the second question,

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I think it's fine to say if you're in a trial, should you be thinking about the object of your faith?

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Would that be a good thing to do? To think about who I'm believing in, and his promises, and his person, and his track record, and his scriptural faithfulness?

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Who am I believing in? Now, I don't suggest that you say to somebody who's suffering, you come alongside of them and say, where's your faith?

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But it'd probably be a good thing to say to yourself, where's my faith? Because it has an object, the Lord Jesus. He's never going to leave me or forsake me.

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Nothing can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Now, here's the second question. Who then is this?

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By the way, Luke is driving at this. He's driving at this in chapter 8, with over nature his power is seen, over demons

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Jesus' power is seen, over sickness his power is seen, over death his power is seen. Who is this?

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And every reader is supposed to answer the question, and I'm supposed to answer the question, and you're supposed to answer the question.

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This is the most important question you can ever ask and answer. Who then is this?

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He commands even the winds and water, and they obey him. I think it was

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Kim's brother, Steve Duncan, when he was a little kid who memorized this verse. Who then is this that even commands the winds and the water, and they obey him?

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You don't even know what the word is, and you're just trying to say it because this is so important. Who is this? You read

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Luke, and you go, I've never met anybody like this. I've never heard of anybody like this. Nobody does these things except Jesus.

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They're afraid, and they marvel, and they say to one another, what is going on? He commands. This is the language of you're a sergeant, and you command people.

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Take the ill. Who's the one that commands? What kind of man is this? Now keep your finger in Luke, and I want to take you to one

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Old Testament passage that will really help you, and that is Psalm 107. We don't really need to record the answers of the men because they're not given to us.

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We don't even need to talk about that, but I want you to see an Old Testament passage.

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There are many, I think this is one of the most excellent, that show us that God and God alone has authority over nature and the sea.

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The sea, tumultuous. The sea, dangerous. The sea cannot be contained, but God is sovereign over the sea, and so Psalm 107 helps us to think

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God's got power over the sea. God's got authority over the sea. Jesus has authority over the sea.

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Jesus has power over the sea. Jesus is God. That's where we're going. Psalm 107, verse 23.

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Let's pick it up there. But God can do these things.

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Jesus did these things. Jesus is God. That's the syllogism. Psalm 107, 23.

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Some went down to the sea and ships doing business on the great waters. They saw the deeds of the

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Lord, His wondrous works in the deep, for He commanded and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea.

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They mounted up to heaven. They went down to the depths. Their courage melted away in their evil plight.

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They reeled and staggered like drunken men, and they were at their wits end. They cried to the

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Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them from their distress. Verse 29, mark it if you're looking at the

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ESV, and it says, made. It's the same word used in Luke chapter 8 to command or order.

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He ordered the storm to be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed.

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That's what we're talking about in Luke 8. Then they were glad that the waters were quiet, and He brought them to their desired haven.

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What's the response? Let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for His wondrous works to the children of man.

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Let them extol Him in the congregation of the people, and praise Him in the assembly of the elders.

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Jesus can do only what God can do. Jesus does what God can do, because Jesus is

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God. That's the point. Back to Luke chapter 8.

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So I ask you, dear congregation, do you believe Jesus is God? Are you trusting

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Him for your salvation, for your forgiveness? I'm not asking if you're trusting something that you've done with a ceremony, or being good as a neighbor, or being a nice friend.

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I'm asking you, are you trusting in the God -man? Sinclair Ferguson writes, for a brief moment, those men saw the majesty, power, and glory of Jesus unveiled.

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They witnessed His lordship over nature. Listen, like men in a storm who see the world momentarily illuminated by lightning, and are able to get their bearings again, the disciples saw

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Jesus just as He was in His glory. It made them realize that if they could answer one question, they would have their bearings both for time and eternity.

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The one question, who is this? And we know the answer.

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We know the object of our faith is the Lord Jesus. Jesus took these men into the storm on purpose, sovereignly, kindly, to teach them a lesson, to have their faith grow, to have their faith multiply, to have their faith get stronger.

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You know, when you're single, you're like, you have all these things to do in life, and then all of a sudden, you get married, and then you've got to manage and work through that with your spouse, and how do

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I do all these things, and all of a sudden, you have one kid and two kids, and it keeps going, and all of a sudden, you're like, how do we do all that and figure this all out, and just getting better and learning as we go, and learning through the hard knocks.

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In a similar way, does not the Lord use trials to help us increase our faith by the

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Spirit's power? Smaller trials, bigger trials, bigger trials, so that we not only can trust the

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Lord, but then we can help other people who've gone through some of the same problems? Over and over and over,

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Jesus said to those men, why do you have weak faith? Over and over, you'll see in Scripture, increase my faith, and as I just said it, and it's not in my notes, when you say that, it's like, okay, the

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Lord's going to give me another trial, do I really want that? When I was younger, as a brand new

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Christian, I said to myself, I better not pray for patients, because the Lord's going to give me opportunities to try to be patient,

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I don't want that, because I'm not a very patient person, so, Lord, your will be done, but I just was afraid to pray.

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Lord, make me a more patient person. How about this, you can pray it right now,

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Lord, strengthen my faith. I need a stronger faith, and however you want to get me there,

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I trust you, because you'll be with me. I trust you, because you'll never leave me.

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I trust you, because you want my best. I trust you, because there's a friend that sticks closer than a brother.

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Rembrandt was 27 when he painted Christ in the Storm of the Sea of Galilee, and of course you know it's been stolen from the museum in Massachusetts, in Boston.

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How many people did Rembrandt put in the boat when he painted this scene?

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Jesus, 12 disciples, that's 13, did anybody else, did he paint anybody else there?

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He painted himself next to Jesus, holding on to a rope, and looking at the viewer.

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I wonder what that means. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for your word. There is no one like the

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Lord Jesus, and to think that every storm we have, every trial we have, every difficulty we have, we have with the

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Lord Jesus. Thank you for that. We do need greater faith.

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We do need stronger faith. We realize that trusting in ourselves is not the way to go, so please forgive us.

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We understand in some trials that it shows we're not as strong as we thought we were, so please forgive us.

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And Father, in the middle of all the trials, we want to continue to learn about the greatness of the

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Lord Jesus. Thank you that we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.