The Storms of Discipleship
Matthew 8:23-27
The 200-year-old church was being readied for an anniversary celebration when calamity struck: the bell ringer was called out of town. The church immediately advertised for another. When the replacement arrived, the Pastor took him to the steps leading to the bell tower, some 150 feet above them. Round and round they went, huffing and puffing all the way. Just as they reached the landing, the person applying for the job of ‘bell ringer’ tripped and fell face-first into the biggest bell of all.
Bo-o-o-o-ong!
Dazed by the blow, the bell ringer stumbled backward onto the landing. The railing broke loose and he fell to the ground. Miraculously, he was unhurt—only stunned—but the Pastor thought it best to call an ambulance.
“Do you know this man’s name?” asked the paramedic when he arrived.
“No,” the Pastor replied, “I’m sorry. He never told me his name. But his face sure rings a bell.”
Sometimes we can feel a little like that bell ringer. No matter how hard we try, we always seem to fall face first into another problem. Life just keeps coming at us, and the ringing never stops in our ears. We ask ourselves, “Is this what Jesus meant by the abundant life?” We may feel like life is passing us by, or that we are caught up in a whirlwind with no promise of escape.
Though I am not a great fan of country music, it does seem to sum up the realities of life in ways that other music can’t. Take for example on of Kenny Chesney’s songs and music videos titled; “There goes my life”
“There Goes My Life…” Is a ballad that focuses on the life of two young kids in high school that find themselves caught in a storm created by their own decision to have sex out of marriage.
The video pictures a scene of this young couple standing in the entry way of a football stadium, where the young lady explains to her boyfriend that she has found out that she is pregnant. He, in disbelief begins to reflect, rubbing his hand through his hair, walking off, sitting alone in the locker room over a decision that was made in an unguarded moment of passion.
All he can see are his dreams going up in smoke. He sings the refrain of the song:
“What will I do in this time when all my plans are gone? There goes my life, there goes my future - my everything - might as well kiss it all good by, there goes my life.”
As the video and the song continue we now see him reflecting on the life of this little child born out of wedlock. A couple of years have passed, and the mistake he’d made now covers the refrigerator door with pictures colored by a child’s hand. He loves that little girl, as she walks up the stairs to bed, she says, “I love you daddy, goodnight,” and he responds, “There goes my life, there goes my future.”
The song concludes when this same little girl standing in the doorway of their home, saying goodbye as she’s off to the coast for college, and he stands in the window waving goodbye, singing, “There goes my life, there goes my future.”
The very thing that causes us grief and stress today, the storm that we may be passing through in this moment, may in God’s grace turn out to be the doorway to a new world, a new hope, a new dawn. We must never forget that Jesus is always with us, and that He has a plan for our lives. That plan can often include storms, as the disciples found out in Matthew 8:23-27.
Where is your life today? Where is your future? Is it with Jesus? Have you made the decision to follow Him, no matter what the cost? If so, then you must be prepared.
Theme: My life is in Jesus, and he may take me into a storm.
Matthew 8:23-27
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; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.” And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?”
1. The disciples counted the cost and joined Jesus in His mission.
Look again at verse 23:
And when He got into the boat, his disciples followed him.
Last week I preached about the cost of discipleship. We have reviewed how the Lord had performed many amazing miracles in Capernaum including the healing of a leper and a Centurion soldier’s servant. We looked at how the crowd had grown large, and how Jesus determined that it was time to move to the other side of the lake to continue His ministry of preaching, teaching, and healing.
As Jesus was preparing to get into the boat, he used that teachable moment to challenge his disciples with the cost of discipleship. On man wanted to follow him, but Jesus warned him that he had no place to rest his head. If you follow Jesus you must count the cost and be willing to sacrifice for the sake of the Kingdom of God.
Another man wanted to first go and take care of the family, but Jesus challenged Him to realize that discipleship means surrendering all other priorities in life to the priority of obeying Jesus.
Both of these illustrations were a call to His disciples to step out of the crowd and into the boat with Christ. It was a call to count the cost and follow Jesus.
And so Matthew continues now his narrative and his first words indicate that: “Jesus got into the boat, and His disciples after mentally counting the cost, obey, and follow Jesus into the boat.”
The disciples most likely did not have a full or complete picture of what getting into the boat, but they knew that they loved and believed in Jesus and they were willing to follow Him no matter what the future held. Much like a child getting into the back seat of a car, the child places his trust fully in his parent to drive that car safely to their next destination. The disciples did not know that stepping into that boat meant they would have to pass through a terrible storm. They only knew that Jesus was in the boat, and that’s where they wanted to be too!
Each of us has made the decision to follow Jesus to one degree or another. We’ve chosen to be identified as followers of Christ. We are here in church on Sunday morning. We’ve accepted Christ as our Savior and most of us have committed ourselves to Him as Lord. But none of us has a full picture of what they may mean for today or tomorrow or next week.
We’ve counted the cost, to the best of our abilities. We’ve joined Christ in His mission, to varying degrees. And now, that commitment and that trust must and will be tested. The Lord will want to see what is really in us.
F. B. Meyer explained it this way:
“A bar of iron is worth $2.50, but when you bend it and shape it into horseshoes it is worth $5. If made into needles it is worth $175. If into penknife blades it is worth $1,625. If made into springs for watches it is worth $125,000.
What a ‘trial by fire’ the bar must undergo to be worth that much! But the more it is manipulated, and the more it is hammered and passed through the heat, beaten, pounded, and polished, the greater its value.”
Everyone, whether Christian or not will face trials in life. Some trials are easily overcome, some take all the faith we can muster. Even non-believers can grow stronger through trials. But trials for the Christian in the hands of a loving Creator can take on a much higher purpose.
P.T. Forsyth said this:
Unless there is within us that which is above us, we shall soon yield to that which is about us.
Trials for the Christian in the hand of a loving Lord can bring forth in us the very life of Christ. But in order for those changes to occur, we must be in the boat with Christ, and we must pass through the storm with Him.
The disciples joined Jesus in His mission and stepped into the boat.
What does the boat represent for you? Where is Jesus calling out to you: “Follow Me?”
- Perhaps it is in taking a step of faith and serving in a ministry capacity (Like teaching a class or joining a worship team) even though you’ve never done it before.
- Perhaps it is taking a family member or a friend out to lunch and sharing your faith in Christ with them.
- Perhaps it is taking a step of faith and beginning to tithe even though you have never done that before, and your bills aren’t getting any smaller.
- Perhaps it is going on a mission trip, or quitting your job and beginning a new career, or packing up your bags and moving to a new community.
To get to the other side, you must step in the boat. After making sure that it is the boat Jesus is stepping into, we must follow by faith. We must also realize that following doesn’t mean that the trip will be easy.
2. Joining Jesus meant passing through a storm
Look at verse 24:
And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep.
Sometimes we pick up the idea that when we follow Jesus, and when we are on a path of obedience, then everything is supposed to be smooth sailing. And then when we encounter a storm at sea, our first response is to think either Jesus has abandoned us, or He is mad at us, or we have done some terrible thing to cause this storm, or perhaps we’ve headed out in the wrong direction.
We see all problems as resulting from our failures, our sins, our mistakes, or a wrong turn we’ve taken. When in reality it may be exactly where Jesus is headed and where he wants us to be.
There is a purpose to pain and suffering that we don’t comprehend or appreciate. We want to be free of pain, but in reality freedom from pain can be a very dangerous place to be.
Dr. Paul W. Brand, the noted leprosy expert who was chief of the rehabilitation branch of the Leprosarium in Carville, Lousiana, had a frightening experience one night when he thought he had contracted leprosy. Dr. Brand arrived in London one night after an exhausting transatlantic ocean trip and long train ride from the English coast. He was getting ready for bed, had taken off his shoes, and as he pulled off a sock, discovered there was no feeling in his heel. To most anyone else this discovery would have meant very little, a momentary numbness. But Dr. Brand was world famous for his restorative surgery on lepers in India. He had convinced himself and his staff at the leprosarium that there was no danger of infection from leprosy after it reached a certain stage. The numbness in his heel terrified him.
In her biography of Dr. Brand, Ten Fingers for God, Dorothy Clarke Wilson says, "He rose mechanically, found a pin, sat down again, and pricked the small area below his ankle. He felt no pain. He thrust the pin deeper, until a speck of blood showed. Still he felt nothing...He supposed, like other workers with leprosy, he had always half expected it...In the beginning probably not a day had gone by without the automatic searching of his body for the telltale patch, the numbed area of skin." All that night the great orthopedic surgeon tried to imagine his new life as a leper, an outcast, his medical staff’s confidence in their immunity shattered by his disaster. And the forced separation from his family. As night receded, he yielded to hope and in the morning, with clinical objectivity, "with steady fingers he bared the skin below his ankle, jabbed in the point--and yelled."
Blessed was the sensation of pain! He realized that during the long train ride, sitting immobile, he had numbed a nerve. From then on, whenever Dr. Brand cut his finger, turned an ankle, even when he suffered from "agonizing nausea as his whole body reacted in violent self-protection from mushroom poisoning, he was to respond with fervent gratitude, ’Thank God for pain!’"
If we are to grow in maturity as a disciple of Christ, we must be willing to let the Lord carry us into and through storms. We must be wiling to find the Lord in the midst of those storms. We must look for the good.
There’s a story about a child psychologist who wanted to observe how different children respond to negative circumstances. They got a room and filled it with horse manure. Putting the pessimistic child in there, they observed how he responded.
He whined and cried, and despaired that he was in a room full of smelly manure.
They put the other child in there, and the little guy started tearing around the room, digging in the manure with an excitement that baffled the on-lookers. After a few moments of watching this, they asked him why he was so excited.
He replied, "With all this manure in the room, there’s got to be a pony in here somewhere!"
I was asked this week why this kind of laid-back, good natured response to trouble comes more naturally to some personality types and to others. And is it possible to teach someone to have that kind of attitude. And I think the answer to that is ‘yes’.
I believe that God takes us through storms in life and one of the purposes of those storms is to teach us to lean upon Jesus. Paul certainly had to learn this lesson. Paul was a strong-willed person who did things his way. He loved to be in control, and evidenced by his dispute with Barnabas over whether or not John Mark should accompany them on a trip.
Paul endured shipwreck, stoning, and all kinds of storms in his life, and I believe that it was through those storms that Paul learned to trust in God. In fact we see this in His writings where he says: “I have learned to be content in whatever circumstance I find myself”. This was a learned response to problems and difficulties.
I am reminded of the story of an African King and his friend who went out on a hunting expedition. The friend had a habit of looking at every situation that ever occurred in his life (positive or negative) and remarking, "This is good!"
One day the king and his friend were out on a hunting
expedition. The friend would load and prepare the guns for the
king. The friend had apparently done something wrong in
preparing one of the guns, for after taking the gun from his
friend, the king fired it and his thumb was blown off.
Examining the situation, the friend remarked as usual,
"This is good!"
To which the king replied, "No, this is not good!"
and proceeded to send his friend to jail.
About a year later, the king was hunting in an area that he
should have known to stay clear of. Cannibals captured him and
took him to their village. They tied his hands, stacked some
wood, set up a stake and bound him to the stake.
As they came near to set fire to the wood, they noticed that the
king was missing a thumb. Being superstitious, they never ate
anyone who was less than whole. So untying the king, they sent
him on his way.
As he returned home, he was reminded of the event that had taken his thumb and felt remorse for his treatment of his friend.
He went immediately to the jail to speak with his friend.
"You were right," he said, "it was good that my thumb was blown off." And he proceeded to tell the friend all that had just
happened. "And so, I am very sorry for sending you to jail for
so long. It was bad for me to do this."
"No," his friend replied, "This is good!"
"What do you mean, ’This is good’? How could it be good that I sent my friend to jail for a year?"
"If I had not been in jail, I would have been with you."
Joining with Jesus in His mission meant that the disciples would have to pass through many storms. They should have known that the storms would come, and they should have been prepared with what to do, but they needed to learn the hard way.
Are we learning the hard way today? Are you in the midst of the storm, and all you can find to do is to complain and to whine about the storm, all the time ignoring Jesus who is sleeping peacefully in the back of the boat. He is not consumed with worry. He is not afraid. He knows “who controls the waves and wind”, and He is at rest.
3. The disciples struggled in the storm before calling on Jesus.
Look at verse 25:
And they went and woke him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.”
The contrast between Jesus and the disciples is amazing in this passage. They are frantically struggling against the wind and the waves. They are bailing water, and rowing with all their strength. They are trying to get the sails down before they are capsized, and they are in terror.
At the same time, Jesus continues to sleep. I am sure He was tired from all of His hard emotional work of the day, but the sleep represents how peaceful Jesus was. He knew ‘all was well’. God is still on His throne.
Jesus was full of faith. The disciples were not. In a parallel passage we read that they question the love and care of Jesus. If He really cared, He’d be helping us to bail out this water. But instead of asking, they just keep struggling.
Isn’t that the way we often handle our storms. We struggle and struggle, and then when all seems totally lost, that is the time we cry out for salvation. Their cry for help was perfect – “Lord, save us!” Not a lot of words, but right on target.
Handley Moule writes:
There is no situation so chaotic that God cannot from that situation, create something that is surpassingly good. He did it at the creation. He did it at the cross. He is doing it today.
And Ernie Merritt has written:
"The problems that are over my head are under the feet of Jesus."
We are most at our senses when we realize that ‘we can’t’ but that “He can”, and when we cry out to Jesus to save us.
In the storm you are in right now, have you cried out to Jesus. I don’t mean have you asked Jesus to sanctify your efforts, or have you asked Jesus to lend a helping hand. I mean, have you cried out to Jesus to carry your load, to speak the word, and to bring His calm to the storm.
The disciples finally did, and when they did they learned some amazing things about Jesus.
4. The disciples entered into a new awareness because of the storm.
Look at verses 26-27:
And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?”
First, Jesus rebuked His disciples for their lack of faith. Then he rebuked the wind and the waves. In doing so He brought calm where there once was chaos, He brought hope where there once was despair, and He brought peace where there was only turmoil.
None of this would have happened if Jesus had not led the disciples into a storm. It was in the storm that they learned to trust in Jesus. It was in the storm that they learned their Lord could calm the fiercest force that they knew. If Jesus can handle this, He can handle anything.
Their new awareness helped them in several areas:
A. Storms aren’t bad, they are necessary.
Almost everyone would rather have sunshine than showers. But just imagine what our world would be like if it never rained again. An example of such a place is in Northern Chile. Franklin Elmer, Jr., described a region between the great Andes mountain range and the Pacific Ocean where rain never falls. He wrote, "Morning after morning the sun rises brilliantly over the tall mountains to the east; each noon it shines brightly down from overhead; evening brings a picturesque sunset. Although storms are often seen raging high in the mountains, and heavy fog banks are observed far out over the sea, the sun continues to shine on this favored and protected strip of land. One would imagine this area to be an earthly paradise; but it is not. Instead, it is a sterile and desolate desert! There are no streams of water, and nothing grows there." Elmer then made this application: "Too often we long for total sunshine and joy in life. We have wished to be rid of burdensome responsibilities. But, like this sunny, unfertile part of Chile, life without its burdens and trials would not be creative, productive, or challenging. We need sunshine and showers." The storm clouds of suffering may at times blot out the sun and threaten to engulf us. But the trusting Christian recognizes that in God’s wise design and under His sovereign control they actually bring showers of blessing
b. Jesus is greater than any storm I may face.
“Even the winds and the sea obey Him.”
c. I can express thankfulness and worship God because, not in spite of storms.
In her book The Hiding Place, Corrie ten Boom tells of the time she and her sister were forced to remove their clothes and stand naked during a typical Nazi inspection. Miss ten Boom said she stood there feeling defiled and forsaken. Then she remembered something. Jesus hung naked on the cross. Suddenly her emotion turned to wonder and worship when she thought of how He chose to do what they were forced to do. She leaned forward and whispered to her sister, “Betsie, they took His clothes, too.” Betsie gasped and said, “Oh, Corrie, that’s right, and I never thanked Him.”
d. God can take the most severe storm in my life and make a beautiful sunrise out of it.
In 1809, Simon Renee Braille and his wife Monique welcomed their fourth child into the world-- a lively boy named Louis. They lived in a small stone house near Paris where Braille was the local harness maker. Leather working tools are dangerous, so the toddler had been instructed not to go into his father’s shop alone.
But when Louis was still small, he slipped into the shop, and with curiosity started to handle all the fascinating tools. As Louis was inspecting an awl, the sharp tool used to punch holes in leather, he slipped and punctured a part of his eye with the tool. The injured eye became infected. The little boy could not keep his hands from rubbing and scratching the wound, and soon the infection spread to his other eye as well. When Louis was only 4, he became completely blind.
Louis was fortunate enough to study at the Royal Institution for Blind Youth in Paris. He excelled as an organist, and at twelve years old began asking the question “How can the blind read?” Over his summer break at home, Louis was determined to find the answer. As He moved and groped around his father’s shop in search of the right tool for his task, the awl presented itself as perfect for the job. The awl would make the raised dots he had seen in the French military system of “night writing.”
And with the very instrument that had blinded him, Louis worked and worked until he had created a system of dots whereby the blind could read and write, work math problems and compose music.
What is your awl--The thing that has crippled you, either by your own doing like young Louis, or someone else’s? Is it a divorce, the death of someone you love, a lost career? Let God take it, and use it in your life for good—to reshape you or comfort others.
Remember this:
There is a cost in following Jesus in His mission.
Joining with Jesus does not excuse me from problems and in fact Jesus may lead me into the midst of a storm.
Learn not to struggle against the storm on your own, but to call out to the Lord in the midst of the storm.
Let the storms of life teach you a new awareness of Jesus and lead you into a new expression of worship.
Let God turn the storms of your life into a new sunrise.
Let’s pray
