Jesus And The Storms Of Life (Short version)
Chuck Sligh
August 25, 2013
TEXT: Matthew 14:22-33 – “And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away. 23 And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone. 24 But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary. 25 And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea. 26 And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear. 27 But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid. 28 And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. 29 And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. 31 And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? 32 And when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased. 33 Then they that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God. ”
INTRODUCTION
Some of you this morning are going through a storm in your life.
• Like Tom or Susan, you may have serious physical problems or pain issues.
• Many of our spouses are going through a storm just getting through the next 12 months while their spouses are deployed downrange.
• Others of you may be going through a trial at work.
• Some are no doubt weathering storms in your marriage, or with one of their children—be it behavior related, like a rebellious teen, or medically related, like a child with autism or special needs.
As a pastor, it can become a heavy burden, because I see the suffering and the pain this life brings—and it’s even more difficult when I myself am going through a storm.
People think we have advanced so far in the twenty-first century—and we have. And yet, pain and suffering are still with us.
• Loved ones still choose destructive habits that can destroy and bring bondage.
• There’s still war that takes our loved ones away and puts them in harm’s way.
• And think of all the advances in technology and medicine that have eliminated many terrible diseases, but these have only exposed us to diseases almost unknown in days when people died much younger—heart diseases, cancers, Alzheimer’s, etc.
• Here we are thirteen years in a new century, and yet there is still so much suffering.
Where do you turn when you face a storm? What can you do? The answer today is the same as it was hundreds of years ago—GO TO JESUS!
Today, I want to encourage us all, for we all share the burdens that others are experiencing. That’s one of the blessings of a Christian fellowship. In Romans 12:15 Paul tells us to “Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.”
Today as we weep with those who weep, let’s look at this story in Matthew 14. I want us to think on the subject, “Jesus and the Storms of Life.”
I. FIRST, NOTE FROM OUR TEXT THAT JESUS WILL TAKE YOU INTO THE STORM – Verse 22 – “And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away.”
Note the word “constrained” in verse 22. Jesus knew what was going to happen, yet He constrained them to get on the boat!
Trials do not catch God by surprise. God doesn’t call an emergency meeting of the trinity to figure out what to do when we go through trials and troubles. In fact, sometimes it is THE LORD who leads us into storms.
Why would Jesus lead us into a storm? (NOTE TO READER: YOU CAN SUBSTITUTE LONGER VERSION OF THIS POINT FOUND AT THE END.)
• We won’t have time to dwell on this for long, but sometimes God allows trials in our lives to chasten and correct us when we are sinning so we’ll go the right way.
• Often trials are to bring us closer to God and make us more God-dependent.
• Sometimes God allows us to go through storms to build His character in our lives.
• And sometimes, God uses storms to teach us deeper truths from God’s Word.
II. SECOND, NOTE THAT JESUS WILL COMFORT YOU IN THE STORM – verse 27 – “But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid.”
Illus. – Elisha Hoffman spent his life as pastor in Pennsylvania. Once, while visiting a lady going through a deep trial, she cried: “Oh, what shall I do? I don’t know what to do!” Then her face brightened and she said, “I must tell Jesus!”
On his way home, the words of the woman came to the pastor’s mind, and that night he wrote that comforting song, “I Must Tell Jesus”.
Listen to the first two verses of that song:
I must tell Jesus all of my trials;
I cannot bear these burdens alone;
In my distress He kindly will help me;
He ever loves and cares for His own.
Tempted and tried I need a great Savior,
One who can help my burdens to bear;
I must tell Jesus, I must tell Jesus;
He all my cares and sorrows will share.
Tell Jesus when you’re in a storm.
That’s what the disciples of John the Baptist did when tragedy struck them and they lost their dynamic teacher. Note Matthew 14:10-12 – “And [Herod] sent, and beheaded John in the prison. 11 And his head was brought in a charger, and given to the damsel: and she brought it to her mother. 12 And his disciples came, and took up the body, and buried it, […now note these last words:] and went and told Jesus.”
In their most trying time, the disciples of John brought their burden to Jesus.
It’s true that Christian brothers and sisters can often be a source of great comfort and encouragement when we are going through the storm. But I believe it’s possible to become too dependent upon other believers for comfort and strength.
Many, when going through a storm, immediately think, “I’ve got to tell someone.” There’s nothing wrong in this, per se. One of the functions of the local church is to comfort and love one another. There’s no greater blessing and relief than to be able to pour out your soul to someone who cares and know that they will weep with you while you weep. But God wants us to come to the place in our lives where we feel like that lady in our illustration who said, “I must tell Jesus.” God wants to bring us to a place in our lives where we see how much we need HIM and where we go to HIM for comfort and support and consolation and strength.
And sometimes God’s people aren’t as caring and supportive as they ought to be. If you’ve got to have that to function, you’ll be mighty discouraged when Christians fail you. But if you cultivate a habit of first going to Jesus in His Word and in prayer, for comfort and solace, you’ll find that He is really all you need.
When you go through the storm, remember that Jesus will comfort you—if you’ll let Him.
III. THIRD, CONSIDER THIS: JESUS WILL TEACH YOU IN THE STORM – verse 31 – “And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?”
Think again on Psalm 119:71 – “It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn they statutes.”
There are some things that God wants us to learn that we can only learn by trials. Every time I have gone through a great trial of affliction there were things that God taught me…there were insights into the Word of God that I learned that I had never seen before…and I was brought a little closer to God through the trial.
In the midst of a storm, God wants to teach us how helpless we are and how great HE is and how great our need for Him is.
Note in verse 31 that Jesus wanted to teach them about faith and how little they had. Often that is what God wants to teach us through our storms.
He wants us to see it so that we will correct it and increase our faith. He wants to get us to the place where we exercise true faith.
Go with me to Hebrews 11, which is known as “the faith chapter.” Here the writer defines faith, and gives a list of many great saints in “God’s Hall of Faith” who exercised great faith in God.
Look at the definition of faith in verse 1 – “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
In that definition is one of the keys of getting through trials. Faith is, “the evidence of things not seen.” The hardest thing in the world is to exercise faith that God knows what He is doing when we go through a trial.
Yet that’s the only time God can really test our faith. It’s no test of faith to trust God when all is going well for us. But when everything’s going WRONG—when you’re in pain, when you’re afraid, when you’re doing without, when you lose everything—THAT’S when you must exercise faith in the things not seen. That’s when we must pray, “Lord, I can’t see any good in this for me, but by faith I trust you to know what You’re doing.”
Now look down at verse 6 – “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”
Did you catch that last phrase?—“…that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” The hardest time to believe that God is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him is in the midst of a storm. We think, “Lord, I’m supposed to be one of yours, right?! Lord, I’m going through this storm and it hurts! I thought you rewarded those who seek you. Lord, I don’t see any reward. I just see problems and the hurt and the heartache and the pain. I just see the grief.”
Dearly beloved, THAT’S when you have to exercise your faith, because it’s only when God’s reward is only the EVIDENCE of things NOT seen that it is truly faith! When you can see God’s reward, you’re walking by sight, not faith. Only when the road is dark and you can’t possibly see any good or reward and you can’t possibly see how God can fulfill His promise in Romans 8:28 – “…all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose”—only THEN is it faith to trust God’s word to be true even when all the evidence points to the opposite conclusion. Only THEN have you exercised faith according the verse 1’s definition, and only THEN can you really please God, according to verse 6.
Now go back to Matthew 14 and let’s see one final truth in our text:
IV. LASTLY, JESUS WILL BRING YOU OUT OF THE STORM – Look with me at verse 31a – “And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him…”
Note Acts 7:9-10 – “And the patriarchs, moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt: but God was with him, 10 And delivered him out of all his afflictions, and gave him favour and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt and all his house.”
There are two great truths to grab hold of in those verses:
• In verse 10 it says that God “delivered him out of all his afflictions.”
God doesn’t always promise to deliver us OUT OF the storms of life. Sometimes He delivers us THROUGH storms. We still have to go through them, but He delivers us by taking us safely through them until they are finished. That leads to the second blessed truth….
• That’s found at the end of verse 9 where we read that “God was with him.”
Oh, what a consolation that is! You see, God didn’t take away Joseph’s trials—He took him through them. But the blessed truth is that in the pit; in the slave caravan, on the slave plantation, in the dungeon, on the prison ground—GOD was with him! In Hebrews 13:5 God says: “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” And dear brother; dear sister—Neither will God leave you nor forsake you in the midst of your storm, and through it all, He WILL bring you through it and He’ll be with you every step of the way.
CONCLUSION
So this morning, remember that if you are going through a storm, Jesus knows about it and He permitted it, so He has a purpose in it and He’ll make it into something good in your life.
And He’ll comfort you in that storm; and He’ll teach you wonderful things in your storm.
And be assured, He’ll bring you through your storm, and every step of the way, He’ll be with you to help you and bless you.
Dear brother; dear sister, in your storm this morning, go to Jesus and TRUST Him.
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ALTERNATE LONGER VERSION FOR POINT THAT ASKS: “Why would Jesus lead us into a storm?”
The Bible specifically tells us four reasons Jesus might lead us into storms in our lives.
• To chasten us
Note Hebrews 12:5-7 – “And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: 6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. 7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?”
Note also Hebrews 12:11 – “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.”
• Another reason is to bring glory to Himself – John 9:3 – “Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.”
• To work in our lives to bring us closer to God and to and make us more dependent upon Him – Psalm 119:67 – “Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word.”
• To teach us deeper things in the Word of God – Psalm 119:71 – “It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.”
