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

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You are listening to Recast Church of Mattawan's Podcast. Join us as we are in a sermon series entitled,

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Not Your Average Savior, A Study in the Book of Matthew. Welcome.

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Is everybody doing all right? Good morning. Good morning. All right. I got a good morning there. Perfect. This morning we're going to be finishing the

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Book of Matthew. Not going all the way through the end of the Book of Matthew. We're going to be finishing our time in the

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Book of Matthew. We're going through Chapter 8. And as many of you know, we could... Somebody's going, phew, are we really going to be here that long?

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No, we're not going all the way to the end of Chapter 28, but to the end of Chapter 8. The way that I've set the preaching schedule is that we're going to preach through...

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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.

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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

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Book of Joshua. Joshua is a very misunderstood book. Something that I think is going to be interesting for us to apply in our contemporary culture.

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We're going to 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.

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How does the Old Testament tie in with that? And what is God's relationship to all that? So we're going to be looking at that.

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Hopefully it'll be a 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.

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Some of you were here. 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.

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And then last week we saw a couple of his followers came to him with a couple of proposals about discipleship.

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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 12 followers, those specific disciples, to get the boat ready.

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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.

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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...

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By nature, do you realize this? A miracle is something that is against the laws of nature, against the laws of science, ultimately.

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So we're going to see some things that just... If you have a hard time making sense of it, it's good because it's a miracle.

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So when we talk about what happens to this storm in our text, I'm not going to try to explain that away or try to figure out what exactly happened there.

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It's miraculous. It's an amazing thing that happened. We're going to see that Jesus had the power, it demonstrates in our text, the power over nature, power over evil spirits of the spiritual realm.

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And we're going to see the way that people respond to Jesus' miracles, two ways, two different responses. I'm titling this message,

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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 awe and shock.

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So open your Bibles, please, to Matthew chapter eight. That's page 692 through 693, and the

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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.

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That's a gift from us to you. But we're going to be starting in Matthew chapter eight in verse 23.

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And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea so that the boat was being swamped by the waves.

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But he was asleep. And they went and woke him saying, save us,

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Lord, we are perishing. And he said to them, why are you afraid, O you of little faith?

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Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.

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And the men marveled saying, what sort of man is this, that even the winds and sea obey him?

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And when he came to the other side, to the country of the Gadarenes, two demon -possessed men met him, coming out of the tomb so fierce that no one could pass that way.

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And behold, they cried out, what have you to do with us, O son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?

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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.

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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.

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The herdsmen fled. And going into the city, they told everything, especially what had happened to the demon -possessed men.

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And behold, all the city came out to meet Jesus. And when they saw him, they begged him to leave their region.

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Let's pray. Father, as we encounter a text here about the way that people in history responded to Jesus.

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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.

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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 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.

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Father, I ask that we would walk from here, lead through these doors changed this morning by your word.

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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.

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We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. I've often said that miracles are megaphones.

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How many of you heard me say that before? Miracles are megaphones. One of the things that they are constantly always shouting is

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God is powerful. In this context, it's Jesus is powerful. He is almighty.

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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.

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Jesus commanded the disciples to get ready to head over to the other side of the lake.

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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.

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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.

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And it seems pretty likely from context that it's the 12 disciples, the ones that he called to follow him.

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Now, there were other people who chose to follow him, but these are the ones that he hand -selected.

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We know by the size of this boat, the capacity of the boat being about 10 to 15 people, that 12 fits right in there.

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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.

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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.

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26 1⁄2 feet long, 7 1⁄2 feet wide, 4 1⁄2 feet tall with a central mast.

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So the wind would have driven a boat like this. They had oars on board, but primarily it was a wind -driven vessel.

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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.

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We're not talking about a little chintzy two -man row boat here, but we're also not talking about a plush yacht that we would see out on Lake Michigan.

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Its dimensions would have made it convenient for fishing. Here, to just kind of make a replica of this, you'd realize that its design was specific for fishing because it would have been easy to reach down to the water's surface, relatively important if you're fishing.

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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.

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So this boat is not necessarily designed for as much stability as it's designed for fishing.

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Notice that Jesus gets into the boat first, and the disciples follow him.

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Now, I think that we could look at that and say, well, okay, that's just the way that it happens, so Matthew records it. There is something that's intentional here, though.

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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.

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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?

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So does this guy get in the boat? Probably not. These 12 that are getting in the boat are saying,

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I'll follow you wherever you go, and then putting their action behind their words.

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Do they know where they're going? Do they know what their destination is? Most likely not. They're following their

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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.

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One of Matthew's favorite words appears in our text four times. He loves this word, behold.

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See it there in verse 24, and behold. It's kind of like I said, Shazam, this is intended to get your attention.

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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.

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This is a common occurrence, and it is declared to be a great storm.

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Now, what's great is the word in Greek for great is mega, so this is a mega storm, okay?

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This is a huge storm. How big is this storm? Well, the boat is getting swamped. It's literally taking on water.

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Waves, the Greek phrase is, the waves are coming up over the sides of this boat.

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They're taking on water. You gotta have in your mind that they're trying to bail. They're trying to get water out of this boat, and it's not working, and they are getting swamped.

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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, you can get wind whipped up pretty well because it's down in a low valley, and the wind sweeps down through the hills and stirs up some pretty significant storms there.

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So you can imagine being in a boat with four and a half feet high walls or sides in seven foot waves.

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How many of you have been out on Lake Michigan before? How many of you have been sick out on Lake Michigan before?

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Well, I think everybody who raised their hand, almost everybody who raised their hand was both. If you've ever been in swells.

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Now, we were crossing the Tasman Sea, and I'll talk with you more about how this happened, but we were crossing the

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Tasman Sea in a cruise ship. 33 -foot swells.

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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.

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So, I mean, being out on the water in a storm is a horrible place to be.

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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.

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Remember what our text said last week? Jesus said these words, "'The Son of Man has no place to lay his head.'"

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He didn't have a consistent home. He didn't have, we talked about how I like to, when

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I'm away from home, I think about my bed, and I'd like to get back to that bed. There's something about that place that's great.

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He didn't have a place like that. So what do we see him doing here in the boat? Sleeping.

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He is sleeping, and they say that deep sleep belongs to those with a clear conscience.

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You heard that before? So it kind of makes sense that Jesus is able to sleep in a storm, right? He's got the clear conscience.

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But what we do see is, think about this. He is physically exhausted. He is physically, now remember, he is the

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God -man. He is human, and he is God in flesh, and his flesh is tired, dog -tired.

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He's been teaching that morning. He comes down and walks several miles down into Capernaum.

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He's healing people along the way. I mentioned last week he had to heal the lady who was gonna fix dinner that night.

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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.

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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 has fallen fast asleep in the middle of this storm, in the bottom of this boat.

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So they went over to him, the disciples. I don't know who it was, Andrew, Peter, James.

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I don't know which one of them, but one of them goes over and wakes him up, and it says that they went over to him. Now, shouting, do you think he's gonna wake up if you shout?

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Hey, Jesus, the guy's sleeping in the middle of a storm. You're not gonna be able to yell to him.

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So it 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.

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And they cry out in their despair. Look at the text. Save us,

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Lord. We are perishing. That is the cry of despair of these 12 disciples.

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We are going to drown. We are going to die. For these men, we know what their trade, official occupation was.

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What was it? Fishing. What does that say about how intense this storm must have been?

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For these guys to think, we're going down, and we're gonna, and this is their profession. This is their business. They lived on this lake.

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This is where they caught fish. This was their job. This was their boat.

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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?

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Where does a mother turn when her child is ill or has a bad diagnosis?

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Where do we turn in the midst of crisis? I think it would be good for us to follow the disciples' example here.

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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.

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Although the disciples are uttering this cry, seeking a physical deliverance, right? That's what they want.

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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.

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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.

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Do you see the analogy there? Do you see what is being drawn out here? Save us, Lord, we are perishing.

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You'll hear me often speak about two important components of the gospel. Understanding that he is

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Lord, that is that he has the authority over us, and understanding that he is

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Savior, that he has paid the price for us. We see that both are mentioned here in this, save us, be our

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Savior, and they call him Lord. They recognize that he is the one with the authority to bring them through this difficulty.

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And not only that, but look at one step further. What is implied by the phrase we are perishing?

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Jesus, without your intervention, we are going under the waves.

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Without your intervention, if we just continue on this tack, exactly how we're going, we are going to die.

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We need you, Lord, we need you to save us. Do you see how that ties in with our spiritual lives?

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We must come to the place where we acknowledge that if we continue doing things our way, we're going under.

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And we cry out to Christ, we cry out to the Lord, and we say, Lord, would you please save us?

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Would you please save me? Have you done that? Have you cried out to Jesus and said to him, save me,

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Lord, I am perishing. Well, how do you feel when you're in a deep sleep and somebody wakes you up?

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Anybody else get grumpy? Anybody else, just maybe a smidge grumpy when that happens?

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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.

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Before he even takes care or remedies the situation, he addresses them directly.

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As if the storm wasn't enough, his followers also face a stern rebuke from their Lord and master.

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Why are you afraid, O you of little faith? Here we see that Jesus is painting fear as antithetical to faith.

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It is the opposite of faith. Did the disciples really think that this was the end of the road for Jesus?

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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?

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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.

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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?

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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?

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But did they? No, they didn't. And I think we've got to cut them some slack because we're just like that, aren't we?

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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.

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So they get a rebuke. But as D .A.

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Carson says about this, D .A. 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.

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You experience that in your life? Where fear has a tendency to marginalize and push our faith out of the central place.

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But equally, if we are cultivating now in the absence of crisis, now I know that some of you do have crisis going on in your life, 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.

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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.

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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.

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What leads you to worry and fear? Encourage you, maybe even this morning, give that over to God by faith.

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Let him carry that burden. He's here and he's waiting for you to hand it to him.

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You see, faith says God is with me and he will give me the strength to handle any storm. But I wanna just really quick, just draw a distinction between what

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I would call presumption and faith. Presumption says he will never take me through any storms.

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He loves me too much to bring storms here. But faith says he will sustain me in the middle of storms.

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He loves me too much to not bring storms into my life because he knows what is going to sharpen me, what is gonna make me a better man, what is gonna make you a better man or a better woman.

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He knows what it takes and he will bring those things into our lives to sharpen us.

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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.

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As we see now in the text with a word, the wind is calmed and the waves subside.

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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 an immense storm, we see the same word applied to the calm.

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It's as extreme a calm as the storm was extreme.

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It is utterly and completely miraculous what Jesus does here.

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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 imagine that the sun came out, the clouds cleared up, the wind is gone, the waves are gone, everything.

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And it's just like, can you imagine how eerie that would be? It would be kind of creepy, wouldn't it?

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If you were in this boat? I mean, you'd be kind of happy, but you'd also be like weirded out, right?

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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?

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There's this great calm that happens. And the men marveled, the text says. Can you say understatement?

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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?

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Think about it. Put yourself in their shoes for a minute. I think we can be a little judgmental of biblical characters.

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You look at this and you go, he just calms a storm in the middle of this raging storm.

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They're swamped, they're taking on water. They probably still had to bail the boat out after this. I mean, they're probably still shoveling water out.

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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

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God? Why is there confusion? What kind of man is this, is the question that they ask. Well, consider this.

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What's he been doing for the last half an hour or an hour? While the storm, while they were trying on their own, and by the way, they were working on their own to try to get this taken care of.

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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?

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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.

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And I'd be kind of like, were you really sleeping? Do you really have to sleep,

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Jesus? If you can do this kind of thing, this is a really chintzy, cheap illustration.

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But you know how Yoda, sorry, hang with me. You know how

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Yoda walks around with a cane? And then all of a sudden he's confronting Count Dooku. Okay, I'm really out there now.

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And he grabs his lightsaber and he just goes like ballistic all over the sky and then puts his lightsaber back and hobbles away.

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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?

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Okay, I'm not comparing Jesus to Yoda. But you know what, those of you who know

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Star Wars, at least, I mean, is that resonating with you? You know, the idea that, did somebody say no? He's like, no,

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I don't have a clue. He's never even seen Star Wars. The point that, you know, looking at his identity, what are they asking?

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What is the nature of the question? They are concerned immediately with his identity. Who is this guy?

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They had to go wake him up. He's human. And then he commands the storm and the wind and the waves and everything is calm.

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This miracle points to Jesus' command over nature. These types of miracles are few and far between in scripture.

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As you go through, you're gonna 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.

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And it's not lost on the disciples. They've watched him heal people, but this leaves them then questioning his identity.

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It's one thing to travel around and see his healing ministry. It's another thing to see him command the physical laws of nature and have them obey his voice.

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So here we have the first glimpse of the disciples recognizing that Jesus is more than just a human prophet.

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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.

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There's something a little bit more going on here that they ask about his unique nature.

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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

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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

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Old Testament. It could be all kinds of things that come into that conclusion in their lives.

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

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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.

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Kind of wise. I mean, he probably wouldn't have had much of a ministry if the very first day he stepped out in the public sphere, he said,

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

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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?

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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.

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Actually going to him as the one who can answer and solve your difficulties is an expression of faith.

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In humility, would you consider bowing before Jesus and saying, Lord, save me. Without you,

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I will perish. And I wanna 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.

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To say, Lord, save me. I am perishing without you. This morning would be a great day to make that decision.

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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

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I would encourage you to state this. Lord, save me. I am perishing.

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Because we are all sinning, right? We're all in the same boat together.

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We are all going under daily in our personal lives.

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If we are honest, and 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.

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And we know that just riding under the surface is chaos. In each one of our lives, there's difficulty, there's frustration, there are storms that are brewing there.

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So I would encourage you by humility to just every day come before Christ and say, Lord, Lord, save me.

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Renew that commitment. 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

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I wasn't a Christian. Not that kind of Lord save me. I mean, if you've given your life over to Christ and you've seen fruit and you've seen him work in your heart and your life, let his spirit convince you in your heart that you are his child, that you are following him.

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But I'm talking about an honest assessment of ourselves and recognizing that we are all sinners.

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We ourselves are sinners and giving that over to Christ. Is that making sense? Regular and daily basis to say that.

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So with this awe and wonder and question in their minds, they arrive at the other side of the lake. It's this eerie calm. Can you imagine what the conversation was like for whatever distance they had to cover?

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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.

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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

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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.

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What fills their eyes when they first crest this hill? A cemetery. Now we think cemetery like there's a cemetery beyond here.

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This is a cemetery, think roll the stone away kind of cemetery. So this is cliffs and rocks that are cut out.

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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.

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These two wild and crazed men approach them from among the tombs. The two men are identified as being demonized.

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It's 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.

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Let the dead be about the business of dead things and dead people. It's talking about the spiritually dead.

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And here we see those who are spiritually dead hanging out with those who are physically dead. Kind of an illustration of that, if you will, from what happened last week.

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It's important to give, I think here a brief definition or history of demons in order to understand what's going on here.

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I wonder if you maybe have some confusion in your minds about what demons are or yeah, just kind of like what's that story.

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Revelation 12, if you were to write that reference down, Revelation 12 is an allegory, it's an illustration.

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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.

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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.

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And we see some very direct teaching about Satan and demons there, about the history. We see that at some point before the

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Garden of Eden, there was war in heaven. And I'm gonna read a portion of this, Revelation 12, seven through nine.

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You can write that reference down and then look at the whole, look at it in context later. Revelation 12, seven through nine says this.

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Now war arose in heaven. Michael and his angels, Michael being the archangel, and his angels fighting against the dragon.

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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.

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And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world.

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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

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Lucifer, followed Satan in his rebellion against God. They were cast down to where, according to the text?

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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.

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Satan being a created being, being an angel, but the chief of them. And they are real created beings that exist in opposition to God.

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And they seek to disrupt God's plans on earth. But Matthew 25, 41, jot that reference down too.

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Matthew 25, 41 identifies that God has prepared a place of punishment for Satan and his angels.

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And in one final day of judgment, they will be condemned for their rebellion against him. It's a future date that is out there.

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But they are here, and they are invisible, and they are around, hanging out.

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Now they are not omnipresent. They are not everywhere at once. They are finite beings. We don't see them.

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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 C .S.

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Lewis. I'm gonna paraphrase it. But there are two opposite errors that we can fall into regarding the demonic.

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We can ignore their existence and therefore forget that there's a spiritual battle raging around us.

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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.

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And so our prayers are weak because we don't pray for protection and for the things that we should because we don't recognize that there's a battle going on.

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So that's the first error is to ignore their existence. The other, on the other hand, is to become overly interested in them.

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Some out there will see a demon behind every bush, behind every sin, behind every temptation, there's a demon.

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And I've often joked, but I mean this sincerely, I am sufficient enough to tempt myself. I don't have to see a demon behind every temptation that I face.

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Often it's my own poor, stupid decisions that tempt me. That make sense? But there is some reality to the fact that these demons are active.

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They desire for things to fall apart. They particularly desire for things to fall apart in the church.

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They are opposed to the worship of Christ. So with all this said,

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Jesus encounters these two men who are, men's, did I just say that? These two men who are demonized.

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And the word possession occurs in our text but is not in the Greek text. Nowhere in scripture is the word possession used regarding demons and humans, but it's implied by what we see these men manifest in light of the demon's influence on them.

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There's a generic term that's very broad in Greek. It's demonized. And that can show a lot of levels of involvement and be a broad level of involvement from influence to physical control.

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And that's where we get the word possession is by some level of physical control that we see here in our text. These two guys exhibit superhuman strength.

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They're declared in Greek to be exceedingly violent. We translate that so fierce.

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So you see the word so fierce, that's exceedingly violent. So violent that people refuse to even go that way.

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By implication, this cemetery is no longer in use. People are probably not coming there anymore or burying people there anymore because they're afraid of these two guys.

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Notice in verse 29 what these demons actually know. They know some significant things.

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They're crafty. Demons have been around, they are ancient. And they've been around and they've been studying human patterns.

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They know what we're made like and how we are fallen and they are privy to that type of information.

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I mean, imagine that they've been here since the creation. They've had the opportunity to view human history from a behind the scenes perspective.

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They even know significant things about God, enough that they acknowledge that Jesus is the son of God, a title of deity.

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They know him. It's almost like they've seen him before. They recognize him.

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And what are you doing here? We know who you are. What are you doing here right now?

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We're Jesus' closest human followers. What are they asking? Who is this guy?

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What is this man? Who is he that's calming the storm and doing all these amazing things?

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And what are the demons saying? Oh, we know you. You are the son of God. You are a deity. They also, other than knowing his identity, they recognize that they are doomed and that Jesus Christ, the one speaking to them, has something to do with their doom, has something to do with their condemnation, have you come to bring about the final judgment, the torture, the torment, before it's proper time?

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What does the phrase before it's proper time imply? That they understand and they know that there is a time coming when they're going to be judged and they know that it's not right now.

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So they have some sense in which they have some understanding at least that there is a time out in the future. They might not know the exact day of when judgment day is, but they know that things have not transpired that need to before that comes about.

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They know a lot. And if there was any doubt that we're in Gentile territory now, we see this huge herd of pigs that tells us we're no longer in Jewish, we're not in Kansas anymore.

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Well, I guess there's probably pigs in Kansas, but we're not in Israel anymore. We've crossed over to a

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Gentile -dominated area where there's things like pig farms. And Matthew, I'm sorry,

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Mark 5 .13, in a parallel account. So you know that the gospels tell some of the same stories.

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They tell them in a little bit different ways. If you were to go over to Mark 5, you would see some differences. Like Mark highlights the one demon -possessed guy who is the spokesman and gives some more detail where Matthew's including both.

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But Mark 5 .13 tells us that there were about 2 ,000 pigs.

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I have a hard time picturing 2 ,000 pigs. Do you have a hard time picturing? No, you don't have a hard time with that. You can kind of picture what that is.

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Greg works in virology with pigs. So 2 ,000 pigs is an astonishing number to me.

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Just can't picture that. But what I struggle with is that is a lot of bacon.

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You know, that's one of the first things. That's a lot of bacon. Am I right that that's a lot of bacon?

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Okay, that's a lot of bacon, yes. And these demons beg Jesus to send them into the herd of pigs.

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Now, I don't understand this, and Scripture doesn't explain it very clearly, but Matthew 12 .43 through 45 explains that demons like to be physically manifest, whatever reason.

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Doesn't give the rationale why demons like to basically inhabit a physical body, but they do.

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And so it makes sense of their request to be cast into the pigs instead of to be cast out into the empty places is the word in the other gospel parallel accounts.

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So they say, don't cast us into empty places, cast us into the pigs instead. We want to be physically manifested.

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Well, we see that they still have some mischief up their sleeve as well. Two things that are highlighted by the request.

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First, animals can be possessed by demons. Ever think about that?

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We have in the text that animals can be possessed by demons. And then, somebody have a dog that they're thinking?

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Cat, okay, we got demons as cats. Like ghost in the darkness kind of thing or something?

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I don't know. But more importantly, the demons recognize the authority of Jesus.

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So I would contend with you that the demons an hour before Jesus shows up on the scene could have went into the pigs if they wanted to, right?

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I mean, they're a free will type of being that can move in and out and do things that they want to do. But now

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Jesus shows up on the scene and what do they do? They defer to him for permission to go into the pigs.

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They immediately recognize his authority and they recognize that they are going to do nothing without him, nothing without his authority over them.

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He has to give them permission now to go into this herd of pigs. Now pause for a second here.

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We've kind of detached ourselves and thought about this a little bit academically. Put yourself in the disciples' shoes. I don't know what these demon possessed people sounded like, blah, blah, blah.

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What are they talking like? I mean, is it creepy? I don't know. Is anybody else besides me like hiding behind Jesus at this point in the story?

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Kind of like 12 guys in single file, hiding, kind of peeking around, like watching this whole thing unfold.

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You get them, Jesus, get them. You, out there. Is anybody else feeling, I mean, would you feel that way in this scenario, in this situation?

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Jesus is kind of like, I'm back here, you're up there. Don't even, I mean, I'm uncomfortable thinking about being there present, watching all of this happen.

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And I don't think this was a light and entertaining conversation that was going on between these demons and Jesus. Now it's unclear from the text why, but Jesus obliges the demons' request.

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The demons depart from the men, enter the pigs, and the pigs all immediately head down the slope and make a great big pot of ham soup.

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Now, if you're anything like me, you're thinking, what a waste of all that bacon.

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But if you're thinking and you're listening to this story like a Jew would think, you begin to applaud at this point because the earth has now been ridded of 2 ,000 unclean animals.

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That's their mindset. That's what they're thinking. The herdsmen are out of here.

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They pack up quick, head into town. Maybe don't even pack up, maybe just run. And can you blame them? I mean, they'd be freaked out.

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They saw this whole thing happen. And now, not only that, but they've lost their whole herd.

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They head into town. They give a report to everyone about what just happened. I'm sure they were careful to explain that it wasn't their fault that all the pigs drowned, right?

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I mean, wouldn't that be one of your first thoughts? It wasn't me, I didn't do it. It was him. But notice that the herdsmen focus especially on what happened to the demon -possessed men.

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They recognize that these men are transformed, and the herdsmen are shocked by the transformation of these two demon -possessed guys.

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So what we have now at the end, the whole city comes out, embraces Jesus. There was a town celebration for the two men who were freed from slavery, from the demonic.

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Just this huge week -long celebration of freedom from sin and freedom from...

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Okay, some of you are looking funny at me because no, that is not the way that it happened. Jesus didn't stay and perform more miracles and heal all their sick.

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And they were like, oh, we got this guy here and he's gonna do all these cool things. They come and they beg him to leave.

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Really? They come and they beg him to depart. Get back in your boat.

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They were not happy with the changed lives of the two men, but were disappointed with the loss of real property.

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Shows something about their priorities, doesn't it? They emphatically expressed, Jesus, there's no room for you on this side of the lake.

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We don't want your brand of miracles around here. You mess with our finances, you are not welcome here.

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Go home. And Jesus obliges them. He goes. We're gonna see when we pick this back up.

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In a while, he's heading back to Capernaum, jumps back in the boat. He's accomplished what he set out to do.

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He has shown his power over nature. He has shown his power in the spiritual realm. And now he sets these two men free.

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I wanna point out that changed lives is Jesus' priority. That's what he is about.

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That is his ministry, is changing lives. And he's still in that business.

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I praise God that he's changed my life. And I pray for all of you, that God would change your life through Jesus Christ as well.

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But he's accomplished what he came to do, and he heads back home. So we see in our text two different responses to Jesus.

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Awe regarding his control of nature, that's awe on the part of his disciples. And then shock by these villagers at his control over spirits.

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And Jesus' disciples have just gone through some significant testing. You say that would be a trying testing time for you, going through the storm to confrontations with demons and angry townspeople.

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Last week we spoke about counting the cost of discipleship. And once again I suggest that we remember that following Jesus does not mean that we skip hardships.

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Doesn't mean that the storms all miss our house. Sometimes Jesus will lead us straight into the heart of difficulty for the purpose of causing us to grow closer in faith and trust to him, more dependence upon him.

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Notice that it was Jesus who commanded them to get ready to head to the other side. Jesus was the first into the boat and they followed him.

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They followed him into danger. They were threatened by the storm, threatened by the possessed. So what brought them through the hardships?

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What brought them through these difficulties? It was their proximity to Christ.

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It was that they were with him. And I would say it's better to be in the boat in the middle of a storm with Jesus than on the shore without him.

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It's better to be involved in the confrontation of demons than at a dinner party with friends if Jesus is with you.

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On the other hand, if Jesus is with you, I would not recommend hanging out with demons. That was meant to be a little funny,

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I don't know. Are you following Christ wherever he leads?

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Are you asking him to save you? Are you dependent upon him each day?

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Questions that I want you to consider as we come to communion this morning. You know, Jesus went to the cross.

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He stood in our place to save us. And without the cross, it makes no sense to call out,

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Lord, save us, we are perishing. Because there's been nothing to cover our sins. Our sins are still with us and our guilt still hangs on us.

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But now that Jesus has become the sacrifice for us, he became the savior. He is the one who is worthy to be called