God’s Answer To Our Storms
Scripture: Isa. 53:1; 1 Sam. 17:10-47; 2 Chron. 20:1-15; Luke 8:22-25
Introduction:
Isaiah 53:1 says “Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?” In this prophecy Isaiah prophesied about Christ and the life He would lead. In this verse Isaiah asks the question: “Who has believed our message?” There are a couple of ways that this can be interpreted but I want to take the simplest route to focus your attention. From this verse I want you to consider if you believe in the Messenger (Christ) and His message (one of hope through love). The reason I am asking you this because if you believe in the Messenger and His message then I ask that you give Him the last word during your storm. Man may have their opinion, but believe what the Messenger is telling you because what He says will confound man. As you will here in my message this morning, God has a response to the things that we face, but we must accept the Messenger and the message in order for us to confidently walk through our storms. We know in our minds that Jess is the answer but we must take this knowledge and believe it in our hearts for only then will we act on it. The title of this message today is “God’s Answer to Our Storms.”
I. Traveling Through Storms Naturally
I was driving to southwest Kansas a few weeks ago when I came upon a storm. It had been cloudy for most of my trip, but when I got within an hour of my destination the skies open and the flood waters came. How many of you have been traveling somewhere and it began to rain? At first the rain comes down in a steady flow and you turn your windshield wipers on to one of the lower speed settings. The windshield wipers are able to remove the rain drops so that your vision is not impaired. You barely notice the sound of the rain drops hitting your car. You reduce your traveling speed but not by too much. Then the rain begins to come down a little faster, a little harder and with a little more intensity. You increase the speed setting on your windshield wipers and they are still able to remove the rain drops but not as quickly and your vision, while not impaired, is beginning to lessen. The sky has gotten much darker. You can’t see the road as clearly as you could before and you can see much less of the road in the distance. Now you begin to notice the sound of the rain as it is hitting your car and, as if in slow motion, you can see the rain drops hit your car and disperse. You reduce your traveling speed again; this time a lot. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, it seems like the skies open up and the rain begins to pour. The rain fall is now a full-fledged storm. The sky is nearly black. The rain drops are pounding your car. You max out the speed setting on your windshield wipers and even though they’re now on the maximum setting you can barely see the road in front of you, never mind seeing in the distance. The sound of the rain hitting your car now sounds like a jack-hammer on pavement. Now, you don’t just reduce your traveling speed but you also pull over to the side of the road. You stop. Your plan: to sit on the side of the road until the storm passes. Does this sound familiar? You’re on your way out of town and you run into what you think is going to be just a steady rainfall and then it turns into a car-stopping storm. What has just happened?
The storm stopped you, at least temporarily, from reaching your destination. The storm caused you to make a decision to pull off of the road you were on. The storm caused you to fear having an accident and/or running off the road. The fear of having an accident caused you to change your plan and stop. This fear, caused by the storm, enticed you to make a decision based on what “could happen.” Now let’s allow this scenario to play out spiritually. How many times have we allowed a storm to cause us to become so afraid that we stopped – we became spiritually paralyzed? Our enemy uses spiritual storms (especially the storms caused by our actions) to take our focus off God; to stop us in our tracks from moving forward. This is what I want to focus on this morning. God’s answer to our storms will remove the paralysis that comes through the fear and get us moving forward again towards His destination for our life.
II. Spiritual Storms Have A Purpose
I know that it will be hard to understand the purpose of any storm, but in the natural if you are in a drought situation as we were this time last year you’d definitely appreciate a good storm because we needed the rain. But let’s talk spiritually. Spiritual storms offer us the opportunity to literally put up or shut up as it relates to our faith walk as we can choose how to walk through each and every storm the “right” way. Yes, there is a right way and a wrong way to go through our storms. When we encounter spiritual storms, their purpose could be confusing depending on the situation. For example, if the storm is of our making (we stepped out of line or out of God’s will and must deal with the consequences of the action) then the purpose of the storm is to get us back on track. It could be a more subtle storm (e.g. we allow ourselves to get so busy with life that we drift away from God as our life fills with the stresses of this world.) Although it might not feel that way, anytime that we experience something that makes us regain our focus on God can be construed “eternally” as a good thing. But often times as I mentioned when I started this message, storms are used to get us off track or to paralyze us in our tracks. This is why I said that God has an answer to our storms. If the enemy of our soul is bringing on storms in our lives to keep us off balance, God has a response that will always bring us into a place of peace and calm. Remember, just like people can see our natural potential to do something, Satan and his army of demons can see our spiritual potential. It is like they can see the Spirit of God resting on us and they understand that we have the potential to do real damage to his kingdom. So before we can start on the battlefield to do this damage he tries to kill that potential before we ever realize it. He is especially good at capitalizing on the storms that we create in our lives. Those storms are so dangerous because oftentimes we fail to see them developing as they develop so slowly. Let me give you a few examples of some spiritual storms and God’s response. We will look at a couple of references in the Old and New Testament and then close on the storm you’re all familiar with that Jesus and His disciples faced.
II. God’s Response To Storms
1 Samuel 17:10-11; 46-47: “Again the Philistine said, ‘I defy the ranks of Israel this day; give me a man that we may fight together. When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid….This day the Lord will deliver you up into my hands, and I will strike you down and remove your head from you. And I will give the dead bodies of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the sky and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel and that all this assembly may know that the Lord does not deliver by sword or by spear; but the battle is the Lord’s and He will give you into our hands.
2 Chronicles 20:1-4; 14-15: “Now it came about after this that the sons of Moab and the sons of Ammon, together with some of the Meunites, came to make war against Jehoshaphat. Then some came and reported to Jehoshaphat, saying, ‘A great multitude is coming against you from beyond the sea, out of Aram and behold, they are in Hazazon-tamar (that is Engedi).’ Jehoshaphat was afraid and turned his attention to see the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. So Judah gathered together to seek help from the Lord; they even came from all the cities of Judah to seek the Lord….Then in the midst of the assembly the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jahaziel the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah, the Levite of the sons of Asaph; and he said, ‘Listen, all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and King Jehoshaphat; thus says the Lord to you, ‘Do not fear or be dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours but God’s.”
These two instances recorded in the Old Testament have something in common – man’s response to a storm. In the first reference we have the story of David versus Goliath. When Goliath came out and challenged the armies of Saul, they responded with fear. Their fear paralyzed them. They were so overcome with fear that they failed to seek out the Lord who had been their protector. Now here comes the teenager David who hears the challenge of Goliath. David was not overcome with fear, but disgust as he witnessed the army of Saul cowering in fear. In verse forty-seven David confesses that the battle was not theirs but the Lord. David knew that God’s response to Goliath was the opposite of man’s. Saul’s army looked at his size and knew his reputation. David knew nothing of him and did not care. Saul’s army cowered down in fear; David knew God was with him and that he, through God’s might, would kill the giant. There was no doubt in David’s mind of what he could do. In the second reference, we find another army coming up against God’s people. Their response was similar in that they were overcome with fear. However, King Jehoshaphat had enough wisdom to proclaim a fast and call out to God. When God spoke He told them not to fear for the battle was not theirs but His. Are you seeing the pattern?
In each of these examples the response of man to the storm (the armies facing them) was fear. The fear in Saul’s army caused them to shut down and become paralyze (unable and unwilling to fight.) The fear within Jehoshaphat caused him to seek God. When God showed up He wanted them to know they had nothing to fear because the battle was not theirs to begin with! I have told you before that one definition of fear is False Expectations Appearing Real. When the storms arise in our life there is the false expectation of what those storms will do which appear to be real and thus we respond to what we think the storms will do versus what God actually says about the storm. The storms are not our battle to fight – its God’s through our faith! If we could get to the mindset that before we allow fear to come in we will always turn towards God, we can get God’s answer to a situation before the fear can take hold of us and we begin responding to the fear. Let me move on. Turn with me to Luke 8:22-25.
Luke 8:22-25: “Now on one of those days Jesus and His disciples got into a boat, and He said to them, ‘Let us go over to the other side of the lake.” So they launched out. But as they were sailing along He fell asleep; and a fierce gale of wind descended on the lake, and they began to be swamped and to be in danger. They came to Jesus and woke Him up, saying, ‘Master, Master, we are perishing!’ And He got up and rebuked the wind and the surging waves, and they stopped, and it became calm. And He said to them, ‘Where is your faith?’ They were fearful and amazed, saying to one another, ‘Who then is this, that He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey Him?”
Jesus had been preaching and teaching the good news of the kingdom of God in the surrounding cities and villages. In verses 5-8 He shared the parable of the sower. In verse 9 the disciples ask him to explain it and Jesus does so in verses 10-15. Let’s look at verse 15: “But the seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit with perseverance.” We know that the seed that is sown is the word of God. How is the word of God sown into our lives? We have to read it and we have to speak it. The more we read the word of God and the more we speak the word of God into our lives the more it will take root in our lives and produce what God has designed it to produce. The Bible says “Faith comes by hearing and understanding the word of God.” Implied in the word “hearing” is “hearing and obeying.” Faith comes no other way. You hear the word of God then you do what you’ve heard. This is how we give God the last say in our situations. We hear what man says then we look to God for what He says. When God speaks we accept what He says about our situation regardless of what man says!
When Jesus had completed His teaching, He told the disciples to get into the ship so that they could go to the other side. What was Jesus’s intent? What did He want to do? He wanted to get to the other side. Do you think the enemy of the soul wanted Jesus to get to the other side so He could continue to teach more people the good news? Do you think he would try to find a way to stop Him? When it comes to God’s plan for your life, do you think the enemy is going to try to keep you from fulfilling it? Do you think he’s going to try to find ways to get you off the path that God has for you – to get you to pull over to “the side of the road”? That storm arose for a reason. The disciples really thought they were going to die and had Jesus not been in the boat with them they probably would have died. Their fear was based on reality as the verse says “they began to be swamped” or in other words the boat began to be filled with water to the point of sinking. The disciples could have drowned while still being in the boat!” (There are Christians drowning spiritually in the midst of their storms right now even though they are attending Church every Sunday!)
There was a time in our lives that it seemed like Nikki and I never had enough money. We could pay the mortgage, buy food and buy gas for the cars and other things of necessity, but we had debt. When we first got married we had to put gas on a credit card so that we could take a ride to get out of the house because we could not afford to do anything else. We really did take “joy rides” in a sense because that was all we could do. When I first got out of the Air Force, things were really tight. I did not know it but this was a storm that was brewing in our lives and with it came a lot of stress and anxiety. We were on the verge of “being in over our heads” with the debt and other bills. When this happens you feel like you’re suffocating. You can’t breathe. You’re in a closed room and someone has removed the door knob. The debt feels like a heavy boulder lying on your chest. We were in Church and confessing the blessing of the Lord but we were still drowning. I thought I was having faith even though I spent time in my bedroom alone crying. Eventually we were able to get out from under the debt but we paid a price. It affected our health and our marriage but God was still able to restore. Always remember, every storm has its price but you determine how much of it you want to pay. Let me get back on track.
The disciples are on the boat and the water was rushing in. They were afraid and believed that they were going to die. I want you to see this picture. These men are seasoned fishermen. There are very few things, if any, that they have not experienced at sea. They’ve gone through storms before but this one, well, it was such a storm that it frightened them. It caused them to act like newbies. Fear gripped them and all of their knowledge, all of their training, all of their experience – it meant nothing. The storm overwhelmed them. Fear had clouded their minds. They became irrational. They couldn’t think clearly. Ladies and gentlemen, when you face a storm with fear in your hearts, you are at the mercy of the storm. And, you have given the enemy of the soul a glimpse into your life that he will use against you over and over again. Fear will defeat you. Fear will neutralize and paralyze you. Fear will kill your faith. The verse says Jesus arose and rebuked the wind and the water and they ceased. The Contemporary English Version says: “Jesus got up and ordered the wind and the waves to stop. They obeyed, and everything was calm.” What did Jesus do? He used his authority as the Son of God and spoke to the storm. Do you see this? Jesus spoke to the storm. We are sons and daughters of God, are we not? And Jesus is our example, our role model, for how we are to live as God’s sons and daughters, is He not? Jesus tells us in John 14:12 that if we believe on Him – if we believe and do what He says – then we will do the works that He did. When storms enter into our life our first and only response as sons and daughters of God is to speak to it and order it to stop. We order it to leave. We order it to vacate the premises. And when we do, the calm will return. The peace will return. How many of you could use a little more peace in your lives? Then act like who you are, not who you were!
Notice the first question Jesus asked the disciples after He had calmed the storm. He didn’t ask them why they were afraid. He didn’t ask them if they were okay. He didn’t ask them if there was damage to boat. He asked them the only question that mattered: “Why didn’t you have faith?” Ladies and gentlemen, that is really the only question that should matter to us. The storm doesn’t matter. What matters is are we living by and walking in faith? Jesus put it this way in Matt. 4:4 – my paraphrase: “God wants us to live by what He says not by what we see. He wants us to trust Him with every part of our lives even when it seems like the storm is about to overtake us. If you can do that then everything God says will be bread for you. It will be life for you.” Why would Jesus ask the disciples that particular question? Why would He ask them “Why didn’t you have faith?” Remember the parable of the sower in verses 4-15? Remember how the devil came after the seed – the word – was sown to steal it out of their hearts? One of the ways he steals the word is by “choking” it out of us (verse 14). The word “choked” means “to strangle completely, drown or to crowd out”. The image it produces is the devil throwing so much at you that your mind begins to overwhelm you with fear and anxiety. Your emotions are bouncing all over the place. You have no peace. The enemy of the soul has caused you to focus on the storm –the cares of this life -- and not on the word of God. This sly dog has not changed what he does. He did the same thing to Eve in the Garden. When the Lord confronted Eve about what she had done, she said that the serpent “beguiled me, and I did eat.” I like the way Young’s Literal Translation says this: “And Jehovah God saith to the woman, `What is this thou hast done?' and the woman saith, `The serpent hath caused me to forget--and I do eat.'
The fear. The anxiety. The out of control emotions. We’ve all been there. We’re suddenly thrust into a situation we didn’t expect. And do you know when many of these unexpected and surprising situations occur? They occur most often after we have had an encounter with God and His word. Think about it. The storms come to distract you from the word. That’s what the devil does. He does not want the word of God taking root in your life because if it does the storms he brings will not mean what they used to. They will not have the impact they use to. They will not fill you with fear and uncertainty – like they used to. Instead you will respond to the storms as the son and daughter of God that you are: with authority!
Second Timothy 1:7 says “For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love and of a sound mind.” The Amplified Bible says it this way: “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity (of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear), but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of calm and well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control.” The word “power” in this verse is the Greek word “dunamis”. It means you have the power to decide what stays in your life and what doesn’t stay in your life. You determine whether or not you are going to respond to the storm out of who you used to be or out of who you have become. The words “sound mind” means discipline or self-control. When you face storms you have the “power” to face them with a mind that has been disciplined by the word of God. But if you are not putting on the word of God, when the storms arrive you will not have the word of God in your reservoir to draw from. When the storms enter your life, and they will, remember that you have nothing to fear because your Heavenly Father has given you power (the ability to handle, endure and overcome the storm), love (which is needed to produce the faith you’ll need to handle, endure and overcome the storm) and a disciplined mind (a mind that is peaceful and can hear the Lord’s instructions for handling, enduring and overcoming the storm).
Conclusion
In closing, remember how I talked about how the storm was so horrific that it can cause you to make a decision to get off the road, off the path God has for you, and pull off to the side and wait for the storm to pass? Let me share with you the rest of the story from my trip to southwest Kansas. I was in such a storm. I could barely see the road but I continued to creep along because I wanted to reach my destination. I saw other travelers who had pulled off the road to wait for the storm to pass. Wherever they were going it was not as important as waiting for the storm to pass. The fear of driving in the storm was too much for them. I continued to creep through the storm. Getting to my destination was important to me. About two miles up the road I drove out of the storm into sunlight. If I hadn’t continued to drive through the storm, if I hadn’t decided to stay on the road, I never would have experienced driving into the sunlight. I didn’t stop. I had a destination to reach. God has a destination for us to reach. He placed it in our hearts before the foundation of the world. And the enemy of the soul, the devil, has brought, and will continue to bring, storms into our lives to get our focus off of God’s plan. I encourage you this morning not to let him do it. Sow the word of God deep into your lives. Read it. Meditate on it. Be like Jeremiah who said “Thy word was found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name O LORD God of hosts.” (16:15) When storms arrive in your life the enemy of the soul wants to see how you’re going to respond. He wants to see if you really know who you are. He wants to know if you really believe that you are a son or a daughter of God in your heart or if you are a son or daughter of God in your head only.
I opened this message with Isaiah 53:1 which says “Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?” Do you believe in the Messenger and His message? When He tells you there is a solution to your storms – do you believe Him? When He tells you there is healing for your body – do you believe Him? When He tells you your job situation will work out – do you believe Him? We are so focused on what we need God to do in our next “what if moment” that we fail to consider what He has already done for us. If we focus on what He has already done for us it will give us faith for what we are currently dealing with. Do you give God or man the final say in your storm?
What is your storm? Are you sick and in need of healing? Are you jobless and seeking employment? Is your marriage in trouble or are your children rebelling? Do you have mounds of debt that it seems like you will never get out from under? What are the storms that “you are creating” in your life? Are you working so many hours that you have very little time for anything else? Are we so involved in outside activities that we have no time for God or anything pertaining to Him? Are we so focused on completing every task because we believe we are the only ones that can do it adding additional stress in our lives? What is the storm that you are facing this morning? I want you to know that whatever your storm – God has an answer and His answer does not start with fear – it starts with faith! Tell God what you’re dealing with; turn it over to Him and watch Him calm the storm according to your profession. Jesus said “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my Yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30
May God bless and keep you is my prayer.
