Matthew 2024

We're gonna turn to the word of God now, and the first reading, which won't come up on the screen.

So you will need to turn to it. Is Psalm a hundred and 7 and we're gonna read verse 23 to 32. So Psalm a hundred and 7 and you can turn to page 611 for that 1. Someone went out on the sea and ships. They were merchants on the mighty waters.

They saw the works of the lord. His wonderful deeds in the deep for he spoke and stirred up a tempest that lifted high the waves. They mounted up to the heavens and went down to the depths In their peril, their courage melted away. They reeled and staggered like drunkards. They were at their wits end.

Then they cried out to the lord in their trouble, and he brought them out of their distress. He instilled the storm to a whisper, the waves of the sea were hushed. They were glad when it grew calm, and he guided them to their desired haven. Let them give thanks to the lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for mankind. Let them exalt him in the assembly of the people and praise him in the council of the elders.

And Matthew 8 verse 18 to 27 is our our next reading. If you'd like to turn to that, Matthew 8. It's page 973 verse 18. When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. Then a teacher of the law came to him and said teacher, I'll follow you wherever you go.

Jesus replied, foxes have dens and birds have nests. But the son of man has nowhere to lay his head. Another disciple said to him, Lord, first let me go and bury my father. But Jesus told him, follow me. And let the dead bury their own dead.

Then he got into the boat, and his disciples followed him. Suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake so that the wave swept over the boat but Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, Lord, save us. We're going to drown. He replied, you of little faith.

Why are you so afraid? Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm. The men were amazed and asked, what kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him. Rory.

Thank you, Tom. Good evening, everybody. My name is Rory for those who don't know me. I'm 1 of the members of staff here at Cornerstone, and it is wonderful to be looking at this this amazing story that I'm sure many people are familiar with, but, let us let us commit our time now to the lord that we will see, truths are fresh in his word. Let's pray.

Father, we do, we do thank you and praise you for this wonderful gospel of Matthew. Now we thank you for all the things that you have been teaching us throughout the series. And we do now, commit our time to you that as we open up this incredible passage, that you will open up our eyes and our hearts and our ears so that we may want to see Christ more than we did before. Help us now as we Some of us might be tired. Just got back from a weekend away, and we pray father you'll give us, awake and alertness so that we may hear from you this evening.

And so we pray these things now in Jesus' name. Oh, man. Okay. We're gonna get straight into it with my points, and the first point we see is the setting. The setting.

If you hear, if you hear last week, you would have, you would have heard the story of these 2 men that we've just read there, who 1 who was too hasty in wanting to follow the lord Jesus, and the second 1 who was too hesitant. And, you can imagine those 2, as as Jesus leaves, they've thought, oh, would it should I follow or should I not? And as they watch as this boat sails into into the lake, They must be nudging each other going. Gosh. I'm glad we didn't go for that 1.

You know? Good job. Good job. We didn't decide to get in that boat because you can see that as they as the the boat goes, the clouds may be gathering the darkness starts to gloom over this boat. And they're thinking, better to be on the shore, better to be on the dry ground than to follow Jesus into that.

Maybe it was for the best that we didn't follow him. But you might have noticed that even though these 2 who were maybe keen, but were put off, they didn't follow Jesus, but the disciples in verse 23 They get when Jesus gets into the boat, they do follow him. They follow him into the boat. They get into this this fishing boat, and they go into the lake. And therefore, they go into the storm.

I I think a lot of people would imagine that the Christian life is meant to be 1 of ease and comfort. But the the reality in this story is quite the opposite, isn't it? He takes him into a storm. He takes him into a storm. In fact, Jesus promises his followers just a couple of chapters before this that the Christian life is not easy.

It's the hardest of lives. It's a life that will will have persecution. It's a life that will have suffering of of various kinds. And this story demonstrates to us that there will be storms if you're gonna follow the lord Jesus Christ. It's gonna be hard, but it also demonstrates us why?

Why? And so that's the setting. Here's the second point. The storm. First 24 to 25 then.

Suddenly, a furious storm came up on the lake so that the waves swept over the boat but Jesus were sleeping. The disciples went and woke him saying lord, savers were going to drown. See, they probably thought they'd get into this boat and it'll be a lovely little sailing trip. Who doesn't love a little sailing trip? We've got the fishing nets.

We can do a bit of fishing as well. Catches a little bite to eat when we get to the other side of the lake. Have a barbecue. And suddenly, we've got a storm. A furious storm.

The word is the size moss mega. Or meggers. I don't know. It's all the time you can tell me how I would say it. Size moss meggers.

In other words, it's absolutely massive. It's it's it's like, you know, we use the word seismic for for like earthquake type waves. It's shaking the the waters to to come up with this huge waves. It's like a it's like a it's what we the word tempest is used here. And you'll notice what the waves are doing.

The waves verse 24 are sweeping over the boat. The word sweet it's it's literally swamping them. It's it's it's veiled them. It's it's it's it's it's enveloping them enveloping them? Where's that?

What's the word? I'm so sorry everybody. I just make up words if I don't know how to say. So, oh well. Okay.

In other words, you if you were standing on the shore and you were those 2 blokes on the shore, you said, oh, that boat's gone. Because the waves are so high and they're so fierce. I know you might have seen the videos of Hurricane Milton or the storms and the news in in Spain. Fierce furious. Or all those videos of those like ships, those fish and chips.

And they're like, all they have is a bank of water, like facing them. That's what's going on here. And the disciples are terrified. And you know that's serious. If these guys are terrified, these are seasoned experienced fishermen, and they're terrified.

You know when you're with an expert of something, and then they look like like something's wrong. You're like, oh, no. This is really bad. And so here they are. They're straining at the oars.

They're straining with the sails. They're they're straining, they're they're doing everything they can do to get get rid of this this water. So much so they realize that the predicament that faces them is death because they say we're gonna drown. And the thing is, for for a Jewish reader, this is even deeper than we think. Because the image of of water and is the sea and and and and storms has the has the the the symbolism of of chaos and of evil forces and satanic forces that are opposed to god and they feel out of control.

In fact, if you if you go through the Psalms and we'll we'll have a look arms in a bit, but they use words like raging and searching, and it and it pitches like a a monster and a warrior that is trying to destroy anything that gets in its way. And you probably know this about the the war anyway. You know, you've ever been to the the the the the beach. If you go into the sea and you find a hit get hit by a huge wave, it's devastating. We once went to Berlin, Berlin gap, Beach.

And the waves got absolutely huge. And, most of us thought, yeah, this is probably the time that we get out of the water, whereas, our Steven thought, no, this is the time to get in the water. And he walked in and he got absolutely smacked by a wave. And he went down, he disappeared. He comes back up and he got hit by another 1.

It was great to see. And he he soon came out. This is this is this is out of control, fierce water. This is monstrous. It's interesting in in Revelation.

Where does the first beast come out of? Comes out of the sea, satanic demonic out of control. And that is the storm that these disciples find themselves in. See, that's that's what it is to follow Jesus. If you're gonna follow Jesus, he will take you into storms.

He'll take you into them. And the people of god the church of guard will be bombarded by storms. All sorts of of storms, you may you may know them. You know, we have to have the storm of of financial crisis. We may have the storm of family crisis.

We may have the storm of mental health and and and and depression. We may have the storm if we're Christians of battling with certain sin. A storm of of persecution. That's what the lord Jesus promises. And and I I don't know what it is for you, and and we all have our different storms at at some point in your life.

And you feel like you're drowning. And you feel like I can't be seen. We We sung about it. Just then, didn't we? The darkness veils, and all I all I feel is the darkness and the storm.

And and and if it's a mental health, I I I only feel darkness and I can feel no light and I can feel no way out of this. And we're swamped and we're attacked. And you may say, look, it was better on the shore. Surely, it was better on the shore. Wasn't it?

Now, so here's my next point. Thirdly, the sleep, the sleep. I love this scene. You can picture it, right? Hopefully, I'm I'm showing you But there they are in the midst of this this this storm.

You have these disciples desperately getting getting buckets and trying to bail this water out and they're straining at these oars as we said. And and they're they're doing everything that they can and they're doing everything they can and imagine 1 of them just looks over, not just his mate and he's going, what is he doing? What is he doing? What what the dickens? But what is he doing?

And I love these 4 words, but Jesus was sleeping. What? He's asleep. That's what I think of. Sleep.

Yeah. The contrast. Can you see the contrast? You got Wally got these boys just furiously going, come on, we call. We're gonna die!

And then you look at Jesus and he's asleep. And you can imagine I mean, I don't know if you've ever if you've ever been really anxious and, you're with somebody else and they're asleep. It's infuriating. For Jerusalem. There I am asleep.

She's awake. And they said, Rory, what do you think? Or or, like, you'd have to go somewhere. You, you know, that you that you really need to get up and get going. Trish is there, tied in the whole house.

I'm there asleep. Can you help? The anxiety is is increasing. He's asleep. You lazy toe rag rory?

I've very much abused in my household. But you can imagine there, can't you? There they are. Theoriously trying to save themselves, and they look at the 1 there who's brought them into this storm. And he's asleep.

This this you we were on the shore before. It was dry. You led us into here Jesus. You led us in. We want you went, let's go, Lads.

We're going into the lake. Nice nice little sailing trip, and we followed you. We thought, oh, what a wonderful time this will be. And there, this huge storm comes about and you're asleep. The absolute cheek of it.

And and and in markets like they say, don't you care? Is that what's going on here? He doesn't care? Well, Of course, he does. Of course, he cares.

He cares. And actually in his sleep, and in those 4 words, but Jesus was sleeping, we learn a lot We have lessons about our lord, Jesus Christ. Number 1, it shows us his humanity. I think this someone might correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is the only time that were told that Jesus sleeps. He's asleep.

That's because he's exhausted. It's not like me after 8 hours and still not waking up to help clean the house. This man has I mean, just look back at chapter eighties. In fact, if you go back to chapter 5 to 7, he's just preached the most the most mammoth of of sermons that there was ever preached. There's an incredible sermon, but that's taken a lot out of them already.

He's then had to heal a man with leprosy. He's then had to heal this centurion's servant. He's then gone and healed pieces mother-in-law, and and and then all these demon possessed people that are coming and coming and coming and coming and he's taken on all of those stuff. And then he's got into this boat. And you can imagine he's absolutely exhausted.

And he is. And he falls asleep. He's human. Sometimes we picture Jesus and we think, oh, he's he's so diff like, completely different in many ways, and He's like ethereal. He's just floating around sort of with a weird smile on his face, but no, he's so human.

He's he's at he's he's cream crackers here, and he sleeps. But not only is he human, But as a human, he completely entrusts himself into the father's care. This is real faith. This is a faith that says, and and he practices what he preaches because in chapter 6, he said You don't need to worry because the father looks after you. And so he gets into a boat and there's a huge storm and he says it doesn't matter, the father will care for me.

And because I have such a it's a it's like a childlike care, a trust in in the father. That he can then just sleep on the boat. He trusts. It's it's a lesson of faith. This whole thing is a lesson of faith.

And then even more amazingly, Even when he's asleep, he's in control. He has his disciples right where he wants them. He's taken them into the storm, Why? Because he wants to show who he is, and he wants to show why he's worth trusting. Which they do.

They do trust him. Eventually, they get there, don't they? They do get there in the end. I mean, it takes a while. I mean, you can, you know, you know, they've tried everything else.

They've tried absolutely everything they can do in their human capacity. And within their limitations, they've done everything they can do. They've They've, you know, lessen the weight on the on the boat. They've they've done almost all they can do in their own ability. And then they realize I need to trust Jesus.

Verse 25. The disciples went and woke him saying, lord, save us. We're going to drown. This is a lesson of faith. This is why the lord Jesus will take you into storms.

To follow him, he will take you into a storm. But he does that to teach you faith. He does that to go, look, once you've tried everything and you've tried it on your own ability, you'll realize that you cannot do anything on your own ability. I must cling on to Jesus. I don't know who you've experienced this before.

There may be storms in your life that you've had, and you just realized how powerless you are. I remember the first time a a a family member, Mike, my cousin died at at the age of 16, I was like, I am helpless. I am hopeless I cannot do anything on my own. I must trust in the lord Jesus Christ. I have amazing, amazing witnesses to the lord Jesus and into prayer that when storms hit the family, they turn to the lord jesus Christ in prayer because there's nowhere else to turn to.

I can try it on my own. But it won't work. I come to the end of my tether. I try all I can, and I realize I can't. And so I must trust Jesus, which leads me to my fourth point the sovereign savior, the sovereign savior verse 26.

Now, what would you expect Jesus to do? Well, I think we all expect him to wake up. Oh, 0, gosh. We're in the middle of a storm here. I better calm it down or save everybody or help out with the bailing out of the water.

But he doesn't do that. Look, verse 26, he reply, he replied, you of little faith. Why are you so afraid? I love this. I I I was I was kinda blown away with it just today even.

I was thinking, we would expect him to deal with the storm first, but the storm isn't the biggest issue here. Their faith is the biggest issue. And so in the middle of the storm, he tells them off. Brilliant Jesus. Can he sort of the storm?

Oh, I'm gonna tell you off. But I don't think it was like a con condemning like you little I'll go use that word, terrible again. You have little faith. You're pathetic. Why don't I think it's like a loving, gentle rebuke.

You know, like, when you're you're doing something wrong, and a loved 1 just has to say your name to call you to attention. Obviously, I get this a bit more than all you, apparently. Rory, and you sort of just drop your head. Yeah. Sorry.

Rory. Okay. You have little faith. Why is he afraid? Don't you, don't you know who I am?

Haven't haven't you seen what I've been doing? Haven't you heard what I've been saying? Where's your trust? Where's your trust? Where's your faith here?

See, the storms test the quality of our faith. They test the quality of our faith. Just like, you know, when you're in school, some of you remember that, some of you might not remember it so well. It's that the exam test the quality of your your learning. The driving test test the quality of your driving.

And quite frankly, I'm amazed it's with you past getting in the car with you. Yeah. There's some people I avoid. I I'll tell you later. You'll have quality assurance everywhere.

We have we we wanna test the quality. And a storm, Jesus takes you into a storm to test the quality of our faith. Here you go. Here's a storm. Will you trust me?

Here's the storm. Will you trust me? And so with that, he then deals with the storm. And look at the power of this man. Look at the power of this man.

Verse 26 b or the second half of 26 Then he got up, rebuked the winds of the waves, and it was completely calm. I love the idea of of us doing this. Like, when it gets really stormy, I know I do this with when I do youth talks, but go outside when it's stormy and tell it to stop. Who who was that? There was a king, wasn't he?

Went to the shore? Was it canoe? Yeah. Thank you everybody. Historians of the room at legends.

Okay. He goes to the he goes to the sea and he tells it to stop. Does it listen to him? No. Because he's not Jesus, but Jesus gets up.

He's had a go at his disciples. He's told them off lovingly. He gets up and he rebukes. I love that. He rebukes the wind and waves.

He he he tells it off like a naughty little schoolboy. It's like those, you know, you know, those, those, people that are in, like, they're like animal whisperers, and there's like a dog that's like trying to rip everyone's throat. So I was like, haya, and then they come in and just go. Stop. I got your attention, Dave, didn't it?

Mist up? Or or like that teacher who walks in and they carry authority. And the kids are messing around, they walk in, they go. In fact, sometimes they leave a steady thing, they just give them a look. I'm silent.

And that's how Jesus talks to the wind of the waves. Down. Sit. And there is complete calm. What?

It's like a sea of glass. I love this quote. I I think I put this quote up if you wanna put it up. This is Matthew Henry. He says, how easily this was done with a word speaking Moses commanded the waters with a rod, Joshua, with the ark of the covenant, Elijah, with a prophet's mantle or the prophet's cloak, but Christ with a word.

See his absolute dominion over all the creatures, which bespeaks both his honor and the happiness of those that have him on their side. Which leads me to my last point, the surprise, the surprise. Verse 27, the men were amazed and asked, what kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him. Nice?

That that phrase there, the men that it starts off with is never used for the disciples. It's only here. And they're marvelling we've seen the word marvelling here that the men, why is he using the men? I think he's saying the men because he wants to compare the men to the man. The men versus the man.

The men are like, whoa. This is someone different. What kind of man? What kind of man can do this that Even the wind and the waves obey him. And the answer is the god man, the lord Jesus Christ, the 1 who is truly human, as we saw him, exhausted asleep in the boat, trusting in the father, but he's completely god.

He's truly god. And it's amazing, like, the the Psalms are just so great in showing us that Jesus is God because you you go back, look, go back to it. Let's have a little revelling in Psalms, shall we? Yeah. Haven't up for that?

Brilliant. Psalm 29. Look at Psalm 29. We're gonna flick through 4 Psalms, and we're gonna see just that Jesus is the divine son of god. Psalm 29 verse 3 to 4 says this.

The voice of the lord is over the waters. The god of glory thunders, the lord thunders over the mighty waters. The voice of the lord is powerful. The voice of the lord is majestic. Do we not see that in this miracle?

Then go next 1 chapter 65 in verse 7. What does it say there? It says? God our city of verse 5, who, still the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their ways, and the turmoil of their nations. Chapter 104 verse 7 to 8.

But at your rebuke. The water's fled. Have you ever seen that? Like, we're talking about telling people off, you know, when someone really scary comes and tells people off and everybody's scatters. Like, when we were on camps and stuff, we were caught out of our bed and someone came in, and then and they were telling us off, we all ran to bed straight away.

That's what's going on. At your rebuke, the waters fled at the sound of your thunder, they took to flight. They flowed over the mountains. They went down into the valley to the place you assigned to them, and then chapter a hundred and 7 as we read at the start. What did a magnificent song that noticed in verse 29.

I love this verse. They well, let's go from verse 28, actually. Then they cried out to the lord in their trouble, and he brought them out of their distressed. He stilled the storm to a whisper. The ways of the sea were hushed.

They were glad when it grew calm, and he guided them to their desired haven. This is the god man. This is the 1 who shows himself to be such. And so look, you go back to those 2, those 2 men on the shore. It's not better.

It's not better on the shore. It's not better on the shore. It's better in the boat, in the storm. Why? Because why we get to see Jesus?

We get to see that he is the 1 over the storm. The 1 who with a word stills the sea to whisper. This is where you go from being intellectual, knowing stuff about who the lord Jesus is to experiencing who the lord Jesus is. This is where we we we take our information, we go into the storm, and we experience that he is indeed the son of god, and he is indeed over the storm. And it should stir our affections that we love him and we trust in him, and we have faith in him, and faith is grown.

And so Jesus is bigger than the storms. It's bigger than the storms. Amazing. All all the the straining, all the the furious work that the disciples were doing, and they couldn't do anything to the storm. And Jesus gets up, and with 1 word, it's done.

It's so easy. He's bigger than it. He's sovereign over it. He controls it. In fact, so big is he.

So big is he that actually he will go to the cross. And endure a much bigger storm than the 1 that we see in this chapter. He will endure the storm of god's judgment. The Bible uses the war the waters as a picture of judgment as well. You think about now ark, and, you know, the waters of judgment and the Red Sea, and it's a judgment on the the Egyptians, and Jesus goes to the cross.

And on that cross, he suffers the wrath of god poured on him. The judgment of the storm. And as he does that, what does he do? He defeats the evil forces. He defeats satan.

He defeats death. And with a word, he announces. It's finished. So that if we trust in him, we don't have to face that storm of judgment. If we follow him, we don't have to face that storm of judgment.

But if we follow him, we will face storms. But as he takes us into these storms, brothers, and sisters, it's 1 of the things I love about the the Bible. And and the gospel and the Christian faith is that storm's gonna come whoever you are, Christian or non Christian. They're gonna come. But the storm for the Christian is used In fact, it's used more.

It's so purposeful. So I look I I I look at a storm that's hit our our life, and I go, well, god used this to grow me. I'll I'll look at a storm and say, god showed me who he was. The lord Jesus Christ has shown me that he is sovereign over this, that he is the savior. And so he will reveal himself to me.

He would test the quality of my faith. It's like, doing these diagnostic tests as well. Oh, I've I'm actually lacking in faith here. I can grow in this area of faith. And that's what I can do.

I can grow in faith. I was, I was away last week doing the sermon on the Mount, for, Chesington's youth group. It's amazing that at the end of chapter 7, and I don't think I'd ever really recognize this, but at the end of chapter 7, he's talking about the wise and the foolish builders. And the storms come. And so it's, like, will you will you build your life upon the word of Jesus and build him on Jesus and get yourself in Jesus?

So that when the storm hits your stand, because you have faith in him, on the solid rock, I stand all over the ground, there's sinking, sinking sand, or will I be the people on the shore, building my nice little sand castle been a lovely little sand castle with a lovely arches and build my life on the things of this world, and put my faith in the things of this world. Yet if I do that, my house will come flattening down in the storm. And so if I build my life upon Jesus now, when that final storm of judgment comes, I won't have to bear that that wrath of god. My house will stand still My life will stand still. It will stand firm because I'm trusting in the lord Jesus Christ and His righteousness.

And so I will walk into the new kingdom with Jesus. But if I build in the shore. And the day of judgment comes, the lord Jesus will say away from me you evildoer, and my life will fall flat with a great crash. So if you haven't trusted in the lord Jesus Christ, if you have not followed him and go into the storm, then do so today. Build your life on him.

Trusting him. Love him. Follow him. Follow him. Because you it's worth it.

He'll show himself to you. He'll show you how great he is, and he is great. Don't be a foolish builder, be a wise builder. For the promise is worth it. The end of Revelation Revelation chapter 21 verse 1 is really interesting because there's something not there, and that is the sea.

The sea's not there anymore in chapter 21. That mean there's gonna be no sea, Rory? We can't go sailing? No. I don't think it means that.

I think he's saying, look, there's no more storms when we get to glory. All the storms are in this world. But in the future, the storms will be gone. For the lord Jesus died, took the greatest storm so that we can have an eternity of peace. And so while we're on this world, let us follow the lord Jesus, let us take us let him take us into the storms so that we may see more of who he is, so that we may test the quality of our faith, and so that we may grow in our trust of our glorious savior, the lord Jesus Christ.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this passage. And we thank you that you're so honest with us, and the lord Jesus Christ isn't hiding things from us. He says we're gonna go into the storm. But we thank you that as Christians, the storm doesn't defeat us.

It should drive us to our glorious savior, Christ. Father, we pray, and we we will all have storms in this room. We pray that we will put our trust in Christ, that we will see that he is the 1 who is sovereign over all things, and there is great comfort in that. And so as the storm rages on, we can say it as well with my soul. Help us to see this more and more father.

We thank you that Jesus took the greatest storm on the cross to win us a future of glory where there will be no more storms to face. Thank you for the lord Jesus in his night. Man.