Matthew 8:23-34 The Power of Christ: Awe and Shock

You are listening to recast Church of Madawans podcast. Join us as we are in a sermon series entitled not your average Savior study in the book of Matthew.

Welcome everybody doing all right. Good morning. All right. I got a good morning there. Perfect. This morning we're gonna be finishing the book of Matthew. Not going all the way through the end of the book of Matthew.

We're gonna be finishing our time in the book of Matthew. We're going through chapter 8 and as many of you know, we could somebody's going. Are we really going to be here that long? No, we're not going all the way to the end of chapter 28.

But to the end of chapter 8 now the way that I've set the preaching schedule is that we're going to preach through I'm preaching through a part of one of the books of the Bible then we're moving on to another one so that we don't just Spend all of our time in Matthew because I want there to be a variety to what we get here at Recast and I want to jump over to the Old Testament here in a little bit.

So next week we're going to be Starting a series in the book of Joshua. Joshua is a very misunderstood book. Something that I think is Gonna be interesting for us to apply in our contemporary culture.

We're gonna see a lot of battles a lot of wars a lot of things going on there. That is quite frankly confusing to a lot of people in our day and age. Where we talk about religious jihad and religious wars and things like that.

And how does the Old Testament tie in with that and what is God's relationship to all that? So we're gonna be looking at that. Hopefully it'll be time of growing together learning together as we come to God's Word in the book of Joshua last week.

We looked and we saw that Jesus was getting ready to jump in a boat you guys some of you were here. He was he was being pressed in by the crowds and he's down on the seashore and he's been teaching all day and he's been Healing people and doing all kinds of stuff and it's just been a really hectic.

Crazy busy kind of day and then a couple of last week. We saw a couple of his followers came to him with with a couple proposals about discipleship. I want to follow you. I'll follow you wherever you go.

They didn't really understand and measure what all that meant. But he told his father he told his 12 followers those specific disciples to get the boat ready. We're going over to the other side and our text picks up right where we left off last week with them.

Jumping in the boat to head out. He's trying to escape the crowds to get a little bit of peace and that's right where we're at this morning. We're going to see two miracles of Jesus two things that he did that were just extremely unique against by nature.

Do you realize this a miracle is something that is against the laws of nature, right? Against the laws of science ultimately, so we're going to see some things that just if you have a hard time making sense of it.

It makes that it's good because it's a miracle. Okay, so when we talk about what happens to this storm in our text, you know I'm not going to try to explain that away or try to try to figure out what exactly happened there.

It's miraculous. It's an amazing thing that happens. We're going to see that Jesus had the power. Demonstrates in our text the power over nature power over evil spirits of the spiritual realm. And we're going to see the way that people respond to Jesus's miracles two ways two different responses.

I'm titling this message the power of Christ awe and shock. We're going to see their response in that order now. We're more familiar with the phrase shock and awe, but this is on shock. I'm so open your Bibles, please to Matthew chapter 8.

That's page Page 692 through 693 and the Bible in the seat back in front of you one more time. If you don't own a Bible, we encourage you to take that Bible with you. That's a gift from us to you, but we're going to be starting in Matthew chapter 8 in verse 23 and we 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, but He was asleep and they went and woke him saying save us Lord.

We are perishing and he said to them Why are you afraid? Oh you of little faith? Then he rose and rebuked the wind and the winds and the sea and there was a great calm and The men marveled saying what sort of man is this that even the winds and sea obey him?

And when he came to the other side to the country of the Gadarene's two demon-possessed men met him coming out of the tomb. So fierce that no one could pass that way and behold they cried out. What have you to do with us?

Oh son of God, have you come here to torment torment us before the time? Now a herd of many pigs was feeding at some distance from them and the demons begged him saying if you cast us out. Send us away into the herd of pigs.

And he said to them go. So they came out and went into the pigs and behold the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in.

The waters.

Her the herdsmen fled and Going into the city they told every everything especially what had happened to the demon-possessed men. And behold all the city came out to meet Jesus and when they saw him they begged him to leave their region.

Let's pray father as we encounter a text here About the way that people in history Responded to Jesus. First of all, we see a glimpse of his power. We see a glimpse of his authority. But then we also see the way that people responded to him and father I ask that each one in this room would respond to your son Jesus Christ this morning.

That each one of us would would take into account the seriousness of Coming in contact with your word this morning hearing from you a Testimony a word about your son his authority and his power. Father I ask that we would walk from here leave through these doors changed this morning by your word.

That our understanding of Jesus would grow richer and deeper. That our understanding about who he is and what that implies for our lives changes as well. We ask this in Jesus name.

Amen.

I've often said that miracles are Megaphones. How many of you heard me say that before miracles are megaphones? One of the things that they are constantly always shouting is God is powerful in this context.

It's Jesus is Powerful. He is Almighty he has control over things that quite frankly you and I don't have control over.

And.

I hope that that comes out loud and clear in this text. Jesus commanded the disciples to Get ready to head over to this the other side of the lake back in verse 18. You can look there probably on your same page there back in 18.

He told them to get ready to head to the other side. And now we see that Jesus gets into the boat and the disciples follow him now. Remember, he's pressed in by these crowds. So there's a limited space in this boat and it seems pretty likely from context that it's the 12 Disciples the ones that he called to follow him now.

There were other people who chose to follow him. But these are the ones that he hand selected. We know by the size of this boat the capacity of the boat being about 10 to 15 people. That it 12 fits right in there back in 1986.

On the northwest corner of the Sea of Galilee. There was a boat that was discovered by some modern-day fishermen who were there. And they found this boat buried in the mud. It dates to about the time of Christ.

Here are the dimensions of the boat just to give you a perspective of what we're talking about twenty six and a half feet long. Seven and a half feet wide four and a half feet tall with a central mast.

So the wind would have driven a boat like this. They had oars on board, but primarily it was a wind driven vessel. Some of these boats now that have been uncovered it appears even had a small area for cooking.

So I mean that gives you a perspective and we're talking about we're not talking about a little chintzy two-man row boat here. We're also also not talking about a plush yacht that we would see out on Lake, Michigan.

Its dimensions would have made it convenient for fishing here to just kind of you know. Make a replica of this you'd realize that it's designed with specific for fishing because it would have been easy to reach down to the water surface.

Relatively important if you're fishing how many of you have been fishing? It's kind of nice to be able to reach down and touch the water when you're out fishing. But it would have also made it fairly susceptible to high waves.

So this boat is not necessarily designed for as much stability as it's designed for fishing. Notice that Jesus gets into the boat first and The disciples follow him now. I think that we could look at that and say well, okay.

That's just the way that it happened. So Matthew records it. There is something that's intentional here, though I believe that as Matthew records these events he draws out these things to draw out a distinction.

Jesus is the one who enters the boat and the disciples are making a Concerted effort to get in the boat with him and follow him now last week. We saw a man who said Jesus I will follow you anywhere that you go, but his heart wasn't in it, right?

So does this guy get in the boat? Probably not. These twelve that are getting in the boat are saying I'll follow you wherever you go. And then putting their action behind their words. Do they know where they're going?

Do they know what their destination is? Most likely not. They're following their Lord and Master and they're getting in and they're following him and Little do they know what danger they're going to find themselves in in just a few moments.

One of Matthew's favorite words appears in our text four times. He loves this word behold see it there in verse 24 and behold. It's kind of like I said Shazam. This is intended to get your attention. Check this out is what he's saying.

Are you ready for this. A Huge storm blows down through the hills west of the lake. This is a common occurrence and It is declared to be a great storm. Now. What's great is the word in Greek for great is mega.

So this is a mega storm. Okay. This is a huge storm. How big is this storm. Well the boat is getting swamped. It's literally taking on water waves the the Greek phrases the waves are coming up over the sides of this boat.

They're taking on water. You got to have in your mind that they're they're trying to bail. It's trying to get water out of this boat and it's not working and they are getting swamped. Now storms in recorded history on the Sea of Galilee and a modern storm if it was storming there today.

Waves can get well over seven feet tall and it's not a large lake. So to get waves that you can get wind whipped up pretty well because it's down in a in a in a low valley. And the wind sweeps down through the hills and stirs up some pretty significant storms there.

So you can imagine being in a boat with four and a half feet high.

Walls.

Or sides in seven foot waves. How many how many of you have been out on Lake Michigan before? How many of you have been sick out on Lake Michigan before? Well, I think everybody who raised their hand almost everybody who raised their hand was both.

If you've ever been in swells now, we were we were crossing the Tasman Sea. And I'll talk with you more about how this happens, but we were crossing the Tasman Sea in a in a cruise ship 33 foot swells.

I didn't eat dinner that night and then the next morning we talked with our waiter at breakfast. And he said he had after 13 years at sea never experienced a night like that at sea so I mean being out in the on the water in a storm is.

It's a horrible place to be. How many of you would have liked to have been out on a lake during the storms that came Through here a couple days ago. I don't like the thought but that's where they're at and they're out in the storm.

Remember what our text said last week? Jesus said these words the Son of Man has no place to lay his head. He didn't have a consistent home. He didn't have we talked about how much I know I like to when I'm away from home.

I think about my bed and I'd like to get back to that bed. You know, there's something about that place. That's great. He didn't have a place like that. So what do we see him doing here in the boat? Sleeping.

He is sleeping and they say that sleep belong the deep sleep belongs to those with a clear conscience. You heard that before so it kind of makes sense that Jesus is able to sleep in a storm, right? He's got he's got the clear conscience.

But what we do see is think about this. He is physically exhausted. He is physically. He now remember he is the God man. He is human and he is God in flesh and His flesh is tired. Dog tired. He's been teaching that morning.

He comes down and walks the several miles down into Capernaum. He's healing people along the way. I mentioned last week He had to heal the lady who was gonna fix dinner that night. She's laying there with a fever and he heals her and she gets up and fixes dinner.

He's healing on into the evening. Then he has this interchange with these two guys at the seashore and he's just trying to get some rest. So here he is and he is Fault he's fallen fast asleep in the middle of this storm in the bottom of this boat.

So they went over to him. The disciples, I don't know who it was Andrew Peter James. I don't know which one of them one of them goes over and wakes him up and it says that he they went over to Him now shouting.

Do you think he's gonna wake up if you shout? Hey Jesus the guy's sleeping in the middle of a storm. You're not gonna be able to yell to him. So that says they went over to him the picture is that they had to put their hand on him they had to shake him do something to actually wake him up and They cry out in their despair.

Look at the text Save us Lord. We are Perishing. That is the cry of despair of these twelve disciples. We are going to drown. We are going to die. For these men we know what their trade official occupation was what was it?

Fishing. What does that say about how intense this storm must have been? For these guys to think we're going down and we're gonna and this is their profession. This is their business. They they lived on this lake.

This is where they Caught fish. This was their job. This was their boat. So where does a fisherman turn when their boat is going under in a storm? Where does an engineer turn when their career is on the rocks?

Where does a mother turn when her child is ill? Or has a bad diagnosis. Where do we turn in the midst of crisis? Think it would be good for us to follow the disciples example here. They turn to the man who is resting in the bow of the boat.

The one who has peace and serenity in the midst of every storm. The one who can do something about it. Although the disciples are uttering this cry. Seeking a physical deliverance, right? That's what they want.

They want the storm gone. They want to be saved. They want to get to the shore in one piece. They don't want to end up fish food. So they cry out Save us Lord. We are perishing and that is a cry that everyone who wants to be spiritually saved Must cry out as well.

Do you see the analogy there? Do you see what is being drawn out here? Save us Lord. We are perishing you'll hear me often speak about two important components of the gospel. Understanding that he is Lord that is that he has the authority over us and Understanding that he is Savior that he has paid the price for us.

We see that both are mentioned here in this Save us be our Savior and they call him.

Lord.

They recognize that he is the one with the authority to bring them through this difficulty and. And not only that but look at one step further what is implied by the phrase we are perishing Jesus without your intervention.

We are going under the waves without your intervention. If we just continue on this tack. Exactly how we're going we are going to die. We need you Lord. We need you to save us. Do you see how that ties in with our spiritual lives?

We must come to the place where we acknowledge that if we continue doing things our way We're going under and We cry out to Christ. We cry out to the Lord and we say Lord. Would you please save? Would you please save me.

Have you done that? Have you cried out to Jesus and said to him save me Lord, I.

Am.

Perishing well.

How do you feel when you're in a deep sleep and somebody wakes you up? Anybody else get grumpy? Anybody else? I'll just maybe a smidge grumpy when that happens. Somebody wakes Jesus up in the middle of a deep sleep, and I think he had more self-control than you or I.

But he certainly lets the disciples have it. Before he even takes care or remedies the situation he addresses them.

Directly as.

If the storm wasn't enough his followers also face a stern rebuke from their Lord and Master. Why are you afraid? Oh you of little faith. Here we see that Jesus is painting fear as antithetical to faith.

It is the opposite of faith. Did the disciples really think that this was the end of the road for Jesus. Have you ever thought about this? Do you think that they took the time to think this through and said, you know Jesus is gonna end up fish food on the bottom of this lake.

You know, did they think through that we're all going down and Jesus is gonna go down with us. I mean, they just watched him do all these miracles and do all this amazing stuff. Are you tracking with me?

But how many of you would admit to maybe losing a little bit of your rational capacity in the middle of a crisis? If they had stopped and had a little meeting a little prayer time and thought through that.

Okay, this probably is not the end of the line because Jesus is with us.

You know.

Right.

But did they know they didn't and I think we've got to cut them some slack because we're just like that, aren't we? Where we're flying off the handle going. Oh, man, what's gonna happen in this situation?

This thing came at me this week, and I don't know what to do. And ah and freaking out. Instead of looking to who's in the boat with us. Thinking through who is with us and guiding us and directing us so they get a rebuke.

But.

Da Carson says about this da Carson a great scholar somebody that I highly respect a professor over at Trinity Seminary in Chicago, he says faith casts out fear. But it is equally true that fear can cast out faith.

You experienced that in your life. Where fear has a tendency to marginalize and push our faith out of the central place? But equally if we are Cultivating now in the absence of crisis now I know that some of you do have crisis going on you know.

But at those times when there is a pretty much calm going on in your life if you are cultivating your faith. It is there for you during those times of fear and during those times of crisis. But I fear that what happens to us often what can tend to happen to me is that when things are going well, I?

Let my faith slide because hey everything is going well who need who needs faith when things are going well, right? Those are the times when we should be building deep roots into God where we should be Tapping into his word and studying and researching and knowing him better so that when crisis comes.

Our faith is established and rooted and strong. What leads you to worry and fear? Encourage you maybe even this morning. Give that over to God by faith. Let him carry that burden. He's here, and he's waiting for you to hand it to him.

You see faith says God is with me, and he will give me the strength to handle any storm. But I want to just really quick just draw a distinction between what I would call presumption and faith. Presumption says he will never take me through any storms.

He loves me too much to bring storms here. But faith says he will sustain me in the middle of storms. He loves me too much to not bring storms into my life. Because he knows what is going to sharpen me.

What is going to make me a better man? What is going to make you a better man or a better woman? He knows what it takes. And he will bring those things into our lives to sharpen us, but he sustains us in the midst of storm.

That's faith presumption says. To presume on the goodness of God is to say he won't take me through storms. As we see now in the text with a word the wind is calmed and the waves subside and The word mega was applied to the storm this intense amazing storm.

And what's intriguing in the text is that to the degree that this was a an immense storm? We see the same word applied to the calm. It's as extreme a calm as the storm was extreme. It is utterly and completely Miraculous what Jesus does here?

It's not like the storm just blew out the waves cease. I Don't know it doesn't say in the text. But I just imagined that the Sun came out the clouds cleared up the wind is gone the waves are gone though.

Everything and it's just like can you imagine how eerie that would be it would be kind of creepy. Wouldn't it if you were in this boat? You'd be kind of happy, but you'd also be like weirded out. Right would you.

I mean you guys are kind of looking at me like maybe I'm just the only one that would be freaked out. But I'm thinking all of us if we were really there. We'd just be like whoa what happened. There's this great calm that happens and The men marveled the text says.

Can you say understatement? Do you think the disciples now consider this do you think they are justified in? Confusion over the nature of Jesus when they see this event unfold. Think about it. Put yourself in their shoes for a minute.

I think we can be a little judgmental of biblical characters. You look at this and you go he just calms a storm in the middle of this. You know this is raging storm their swamp, and they're taking on water.

They probably still had to bail the boat out after this. I mean they're probably still you know shoveling water out. So why don't they just bow and say you are Lord right here and right now? Why aren't they just like okay?

You're God. Why is there confusion? What kind of man is this is the question that they ask. Well consider this. What's he been doing for the last half an hour or an hour? While the storm while they were trying on their own they were and by the way.

They were working on their own to try to get this taken care of before they went and woke Jesus up. They were like oh we got this we're fishermen and eventually they needed his help. What was he doing he was sleeping he's exhausted so what you have is one moment Jesus going from exhausted.

Physically exhausted in the bow of the boat to one second later. He's up, and he commands the storm, and it's gone, and I'd be kind of like We really sleeping. Do you really have to sleep Jesus if you can do this kind of thing?

This is a really chintzy cheap illustration, but you know how Yoda. Sorry hang with me. You know how Yoda walks around with a cane and then all of a sudden he's confronting count Dooku, okay? I'm really out there now.

And and he grabs his lightsaber. And he just goes like ballistic all over the sky and then puts his lightsaber back and hobbles away. And you're kind of like dude Yoda. You don't need a cane come on. You can do all that other stuff, and then you have to walk with a cane, okay?

That was. I'm not comparing Jesus to Yoda. He's. But you know what those of you who know Star Wars at least I mean is that is that resonating with you. You know the idea that. Did somebody say no, I don't have a clue they ain't seen Star Wars.

The point that quite you know looking at his identity. What are they asking? What is the nature of the question? They are concerned immediately with his identity. Who is this guy? They had to go wake him up.

He's human, and then he commands the storm and the wind and the waves everything is calm. This miracle points to Jesus's command over nature. These types of miracles are few and far between in scripture as you go through you're going to find a lot of healings and things.

Like that, but this is a pretty rare occurrence where actual natural laws of science and The physical world are changed are repealed. And it's not lost on the disciples. They've watched him heal people, but this leaves them then questioning his identity.

It's one thing to travel around and see his his healing ministry. It's another thing to see him command the physical laws of nature and have them obey his voice. So here we have the first glimpse of the disciples recognizing that Jesus is more than just a human prophet.

He is more than just a guy that travels around and is a good teacher that is Asking them to follow him and learn from him. There's something a little bit more going on here that they ask. About his unique nature.

What kind of man is this the conclusion of 11 of these disciples? Is that they will eventually come to the conclusion that Jesus is God in.

Flesh.

Now they'll come to that conclusion by the things that Jesus says by the things that he does by referencing the Old Testament. It can be all kinds of things that come into that conclusion in their in their lives.

Not sure that they're there when we're here in this text that they're like, oh, yeah, he's he's God's son.

He's he's God in flesh.

It took them a while to get there. But it was through seeing his life and listening to his teaching and he didn't just drop it like a bombshell. Kind of wise. I mean he probably wouldn't wouldn't have had much of a ministry if the very first day He stepped out in the public sphere.

He said I'm God. They would have just picked up stones and it would have been done. So he you'll see that he progressively reveals the nature of who he is over time to those when he was here on earth.

But the question for this first part, where do you turn when the storms of life? Blow down from the hills and you're being swamped. Jesus is always there available and eager for your expression of faith.

As a matter of fact turning to him is an expression of faith. Actually going to him as the as the the one who can answer and solve your difficulties is an expression of faith. In humility, would you consider bowing before Jesus and saying Lord save me?

Without you I will perish. And I want to encourage you that if you're here and you have not made a decision to follow Christ. This would be a great time for it to say Lord save me. I am perishing without you.

This morning would be a great day to make that decision. But if you're here and you have made that decision and you have said Christ, I will follow you with my life. Every day, I would encourage you to state this Lord save me.

I am perishing. Because we are all sinning right. We're all on the same boat together. We are all going under. Daily in our personal lives if we are honest and that's that that's the trick. It's so often we can come to church and act like we have our acts together and everything is going well.

And we know that just riding under the surface is chaos in each one of our lives. There's difficulty. There's frustration. There is there are storms that are brewing there. So I would encourage you by humility to just every day come before Christ and say Lord save me.

Renew that commitment not that not that it's like when I was nine years old I prayed every night that Jesus would save me because I was afraid maybe I wasn't a Christian. Not that kind of Lord save me.

I mean if you if you've given your life over to Christ and you've seen fruit and you've seen him work in your heart in your life. Let his spirit convince you in your heart that you are his child that you are following him, but I'm talking about an honest Assessment of ourselves and recognizing that we are all sinners.

We ourselves our sinners and giving that over to Christ is that making sense. Regular and daily basis to say that so with this on wonder and question in their minds. They arrive at the other side of the lake this eerie calm.

Can you imagine what the conversation was like for whatever distance they had to cover? Maybe there was no conversation. It was just stunned silence. He had just calmed the storm. Finished bailing the boat get to the other side.

But there's very little rest for those who have chosen to follow Christ. We see that immediately they arrived to the other side. They moored the boat. They get out they climbed the steep hill which is on the east side of the Sea of Galilee.

The geography is still there. They have to climb this trail to get to the top and as they crest the hill they find that they've moored the boat at an unclean place what fills their eyes when they first crest this hill a Cemetery now we think cemetery like there's a cemetery right beyond here.

This is a cemetery think roll, you know roll the stone away kind of cemetery. So this is cliffs and rocks that are cut out some of those stones are likely rolled away because there's these two dudes that are living there and They are not just your average guys.

These two wild and crazed men approach them from among the tombs. The two men are identified as being Demonized is a better translation of the Greek word. We see demon possessed demonized ironically. Jesus said at the end of our text last week Let the dead bury the dead let the dead be about the business of dead things and dead people talking about the spiritually dead and.

Here we see those who are spiritually dead hanging out with those who are physically dead kind of up. An illustration of that if you will from what happened last week. It's important to give a I think here a brief definition.

Or history of demons in order to understand what's going on here. What if you maybe have some confusion in your minds about what demons are or you know? Yeah, just kind of like what's that story? Revelation 12.

If you were to write that reference down revelation 12 is an allegory. It's an illustration. It uses a lot of metaphorical language. But it gives some pretty detailed Spiritual history about what's going on behind the scenes of real history so we can talk about Natural history we can talk about us history.

We can talk about world history, but what we're seeing in revelation 12 is a spiritual history of what's going on kind of in heaven and in the realms that are invisible to us and We see some very direct teaching about Satan and demons there about the history.

We see that at some point before the Garden of Eden there was war in heaven. And I'm going to read a portion of this revelation 12 7 through 9 you can write that reference down and then look at the whole.

Look at it in context later. Revelation 12 7 through 9 says it's now war arose in heaven. Michael and his angels. Michael being the archangel and his angels fighting against the dragon. Dragon identified as Satan and the dragon and his angels fought back.

But he was defeated and there was no longer a place for them in heaven and the great dragon was thrown down that ancient serpent who is called the devil and Satan. The deceiver of the whole world. He was thrown down to the earth and his angels were thrown down with him.

Now we see from some metaphorical language there that it's about a third of the angels Followed Lucifer followed Satan in his rebellion against God. They were cast down to where according to the text Earth they were thrown down here.

So it's not a stretch to identify the demons that Jesus encounters with those fallen angels under the leadership of Satan. Satan being a created being being an angel, but the chief of them and There are real created beings that exist in opposition to God and they seek to disrupt God's plans on earth but Matthew 25 41 Jot that reference down to Matthew 25 41 identifies that God has prepared a place of punishment for Satan and his angels and in one final day of judgment They will be condemned for their rebellion against him the future date that is out there.

But they are here and they are invisible and they are Around hanging out now. They are not omnipresent. They're not everywhere at once. They are finite beings. We don't see them. We don't necessarily know where they are or what they're up to.

I Think the best quotes regarding the demonic the best quote is by CS Lewis. I'm going to paraphrase it but there are two opposite errors that we can fall into regarding the demonic. We can ignore their existence and therefore forget that there's a spiritual battle raging around us and I think that's the error that probably most of us fall into in the West as We cease to even consider that there are demonic forces out there that are set against Christ and his church.