Theme: The Lord of the storm
Text: Job 38:1-11; 2 Cor. 6:1-13; Mk. 4:35-41
No human being can live without faith in someone or something. The difference between the Christian and the unsaved person is not that one has faith and the other does not. They both have faith. The difference between the two is the object of their faith. The Christian has put his or her faith in Jesus Christ and the Christian experience is from start to finish, a journey of faith. Through faith we come into possession of a new life and through it we walk in this new life. Today many people, including Christians, would rather believe the advertisements they see or hear about than believe what the Word of God declares. They would rather believe the drug peddlers who offer one cure for every disease under the sun than believe the Word of God. It really appears that we are prepared to believe everything but not the Word of God. If, for example, your boss were to promise you a raise in salary, you would believe him and not question it and go home rejoicing. So why do we question what God says? It is only when we believe the Word of God and act on it that it becomes a reality in our lives. It is this faith that enables us to overcome storms we face in life because Jesus Christ is the Lord of the Storm.
There is nobody in the world that will not face a storm during his or her life. But we can prepare for the storms that lie ahead by listening to God’s Word and trusting Him to fulfil His Word. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God. It is not enough to just hear the Word of God; we must also act on it. Listening to the wrong things, or listening to the right things with the wrong attitude, will keep us from the truth and God’s blessing. It is very easy to think we are spiritual because we listen to one preacher after another, take notes and mark our Bibles. We can never be really spiritual if we have the wrong attitude and never practice what we hear from the Word of God. We need to be doers of the Word.
Satan always works by getting man to disobey the word of God. He uses the same tricks he used in the Garden of Eden. If we think that Satan has power these days we must realise that he even had more power before Jesus stripped him of it. We can resist him because of the victory of Christ and we need to do this if we are to lead successful Christian lives. I once read the report of a group of Christians who went to South America to witness to street children after hearing of how they were being murdered and maltreated. They took along with them all they needed but they could not make a single convert. They then made a wise decision to go to the Lord and find out why this was happening when it was He who had burdened their hearts to come to South America in the first place. During the time of confession one of the group broke down in tears asking the Lord to forgive him since he had a child he was not supporting in any way. After counselling and support from other members of the group he rang the mother the next day, apologised and made funds available for the upkeep of their child. After that their work of evangelisation took on a completely new turn and they were able to bring many street children into the Kingdom of God, more than they had even imagined. We can only glorify God when we obey Him and life is a classroom where we learn to grow spiritually. We can only see the significance of what we have learnt when we put it into practice. After learning we go through a series of examinations to see how much we have really learned. Most of us enjoy Bible study, but we often wish we could avoid the examinations that often follow the lessons. However, it is in the tests of life that faith really grows and we get closer to Christ.
In the course of our lives there are many things that arise and expose us to danger. There are storms that threaten to overwhelm us but these challenges are only to test our faith and we should not allow them to destroy us. Faith must be tested before it can be trusted. It is one thing to learn a new spiritual truth, but quite something else to practice that truth in the everyday experiences of life. The real test of faith is to trust Jesus Christ completely. But very often our response to the storms of life is not that of faith but of fear. Fear is a natural reaction to those things that threaten us but if it takes over completely it prevents us from dealing with the problem, and it can in the end, permit what we fear to destroy us.
Christ faced many challenges in His life but He was always the victor. He overcame by faith. The first act of His public ministry was to serve notice to the devil and to the whole world that the battle was on and that the Kingdom of God had come. Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil and immediately after His baptism the confrontation began. That first confrontation in the wilderness was a crucial battle but the outcome was never in doubt. Jesus’ victory cleared the way spiritually for all that He had to accomplish during His life. In today’s gospel reading, after a long day of teaching and destroying the work of the devil in many lives, Jesus gave His disciples a command that was also a word of promise, to go to the opposite shore. As the ship left Capernaum, Jesus who was weary, went to sleep. While Jesus slept a storm came up and the disciples who were seasoned fishermen, were afraid. Jesus just kept on sleeping through the storm confident that His Father was completely in control. The disciples on the other hand were so frightened that they awakened Him and begged Him to rescue them. The real problem with the disciples was not the storm but their unbelief. Actually their unbelief was more dangerous than the storm. Have you faced a storm in your life or maybe you are even facing a storm at the moment? There is no one, and the Christian is not exempted, who will not face a storm during his or her life. If you have not faced a storm in your life you will definitely face one and how you deal with the storm is of crucial importance.
The only way to deal with the storms of life is to gain a perspective on the danger we are in. Knowing the source of the problem is the first step to the solution of the problem. Jesus saw things as they really were and not as they appeared to be. He was able to discern the spiritual forces that were shaping the visible lives of the people on earth. It is most likely that Satan was behind this severe storm, attempting to destroy Jesus or at least hinder Him from reaching the demonised man at Gadara. In every situation we face in the world, we need to understand that the Lord is able to help us and that He wants to help us. We need to understand and believe that Christ has power over the wind and the waves and that He can still the storm and calm the troubled waters. But we also have to understand that we need to call on Him in time of need.
Satan’s main task and desire is to prevent God from being glorified. Whenever God is not glorified in a person’s life, in a Church, in a city, or in the world as a whole, Satan has in that degree accomplished his objective. He enjoys it when human beings and human society are as miserable as possible. He has come to steal, to kill and to destroy. Wars, poverty, oppression, sickness, racism, greed and similar evils do not bring glory to God. And this is why Jesus came into the world to seek and save the lost and wherever He went He destroyed the works of the devil. After destroying the works of the devil in many lives, Jesus desired to extend His activities further and so He decided to go into the country of the Gadarenes. The Gadarenes had backslidden so far that they were even keeping pigs that were forbidden by the Jewish law. Their lives were such that they were actually living outside the blessings of God and the area had become Satan’s stronghold. It was therefore no wonder that the strongest demoniac Christ dealt with, a man possessed by over 2000 demons, was found there. It is obvious that the enemy would not want God to be glorified in the land neither in the demon possessed man and the best way to prevent this was to prevent Jesus from reaching the place. The storm Jesus’ disciples encountered on that day was no ordinary storm. They looked around and all they could see was danger. They looked within and what they could see was fear but they failed to look up by faith to God. Faith would have overcome their fear for faith and fear cannot dwell together in the same heart. Faith is not simply saying that what God says is true; true faith is acting on what God says because it is true. With true faith we will no longer be afraid of what we do not know or what we cannot control because we would be living in the will of God. We can always rest peacefully because we are assured that no storm can prevent the fulfilment of God’s purposes.
A person does not drown because he has fallen into water; he drowns because he is not able to get out of the water. Men have been known to drown in shallow water because they believed they were in deep water. If they had only tried standing up they would have realised that their heads would have been well above the water level. God has made provision for us not to drown during the storms of life. He has made provision for us to exercise authority over the enemy seeking to destroy us. Jesus Christ did not exercise His authority as God because on earth He put aside His divine nature. He was able to exercise power over the enemy and still the storm not because He was God but because of His total reliance on the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was the source of all His power during His earthly ministry and we today have access to the same Holy Spirit. We gain access to the Holy Spirit by submitting to Christ, drawing near to Him, and fulfilling His divine will. Just as Jesus was constantly in contact with His Father and did everything according to His Father’s will, so we also should constantly be in contact with Christ and do everything according to His will in the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the only way to know the source of the problems and the solutions to those problems. Jesus knew that it was God’s will to go to the other side of the lake. He also knew that no matter what happened in-between He would achieve His goal because He was doing God’s will. Who would not sleep with such assurance? How can we say we trust God and then are constantly worried about the storms we face in life – our health, our kids, our job, and our finances? Being totally dependent on Christ is crucial for a successful Christian life. As Christ’s disciples are we underestimating Him as His first disciples did? Are we saying that His power and authority cannot be applied to every situation? Jesus Christ is still Lord of the storm. Amen!
