In His World No.3 The Lord of His World

This evening's reading is taken from Psalm 107, commencing at verse 23. Others went out on the sea in ships. They were merchants on the mighty waters.

They saw the works of the Lord in the wonderful depths of the deep. For he spoke and stirred up the 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 drunken men. They were at their wits' end when they cried out to the Lord in their trouble and he brought them out of their distress.

He stilled 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 men. Master, the tempest is raging. The billows are tossing high.

The sky is o'ershadowed with blackness. No shelter or help is nigh. And the concept is of the sovereignty of our Lord Jesus as he ministers to the disciples on the storm-tossed sea.

Master, the tempest is raging. And Father, we ask that now as we come around your holy and inspired word you will speak to all our hearts. Still every vestige of a storm.

The experience of any within this congregation. We do not ask that you would apply your word as some soporific of some drug. Indeed, that would not occur to you.

We ask, Lord, that your word shall come to expose our sin. And then to heal us with forgiveness at the point of our confession. And send us on into the future, knowing that alongside us in the frail boat that takes us through life is none other than our Lord Jesus, for his sake.

Amen. Please do sit down. And let's read together from the Gospel of Matthew.

Chapter of Matthew's Gospel and verse 23. Then he, that is our Lord Jesus, got into the boat, and his disciples followed him. Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat.

But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, Lord, save us, we're going to drown. The Lord Jesus 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. It's been a rough week, hasn't it? British consortium behind the Channel Tunnel say they need some money. The English football team manager says he needs a break.

I vote they give it him. Joan Fonda needs to lose weight, so she's offering up two ribs to be taken out of her body. John McEnroe says he needs a psychiatrist.

Some of us have been of that persuasion for a while. Rough week, can be rough following the Lord Jesus. You see, one of the things that I thank God for when reading the account of the ministry of our Lord is how accurate the Gospel writers are as they report to us what our Saviour said.

In the fifth, sixth and seventh chapters of Matthew's Gospel, you've got a record of the Sermon on the Mount. Now, if you do not know the teaching on the Sermon on the Mount, then you could buy 25 tabernacle tapes, because Tim and I have been working our way through the Sermon on the Mount, and one of the reasons for our tape ministry is to make this teaching available, either by purchase or by loan. If you can't afford to loan it, but you're really serious, then we'll even come to some arrangement with you so that you can have this ministry free.

Now, why does Jesus set up the teaching on the Sermon on the Mount? Because, well, He's the King, and He wants people to understand how you come into the Kingdom. And in the eighth chapter of Matthew's Gospel, it's not accidental that the narrative now takes over what Jesus is doing when He meets up with ordinary people. And basically, He's sifting applications for the Kingdom.

Those who can come in and those who, for bad reasons, are turned down because, well, they never really appreciated that to follow the Lord Jesus and to be a member of His Kingdom is so important that everything else ought to be subsequent to that. So, last time of preaching on this chapter, a week or so ago, Tim was telling you about disciples who would have followed Jesus, but they never really got through the test. To be a disciple of the Lord Jesus means that you've got to be prepared to toss on one side your academic career, if necessary.

So, this scribe referred to in the 18th verse, he never made the grade because he hadn't got his priorities in order. Nor had a man in the 21st verse who also puts another option to our Lord Jesus before he's prepared to give Him a full blooded ascent to being His disciple. And he too is not able to join the company of those who are members of the entourage of our Lord Jesus.

Now, have you noticed in the 18th verse, before you go on to the reading that I just brought to you, that our Lord, in one sense, has been distracted because, well, these two would-be disciples have come across His trike just when He was determining to do something else. When Jesus saw the crowd around Him, He gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. And before they can pull away, then these two disciples, potential disciples, come to the Lord Jesus and try to negotiate.

So, in the 23rd verse, you have to read on with the intention that Jesus has had for a little while to get into the boat and His disciples and to cross over the Sea of Galilee. We were singing an old-fashioned children's song this morning. I've got a crusade on at the moment to suggest to boys and girls as well as to adults that though the new is good, the old is not just to necessarily be thrown away.

And one of the choruses that I could have introduced to the boys and girls was when the road is rough and steep, fix your eyes upon Jesus. And all of you who are my age or older will know that song and it's a good one. But sometimes the road becomes rough and steep when you've fixed your eyes upon Jesus.

When did the disciples go with Jesus across the Sea of Galilee? Well, when He had done teaching the Sermon on the Mount. When He had dismissed a double application for membership in His kingdom. Then He got into the boat with His disciples.

So, let's consider for a few moments about the embarking. It's a deliberate act, isn't it? You know what embarking means? When you get on a ship, you embark on it. It's a deliberate act.

The initiative is the Lord Jesus's and the ones who follow Him are those close friends of His who've been in His company for quite some time. Now, this story is told with a modicum of words. If you go to Mark's Gospel and Luke's Gospel, you'll find that it's fleshed out.

But Matthew compresses it because he wants you to have in mind that here is an example of the Lord in His world exercising authority over nature. And as a secondary thing, He wants to show you the disciples trying to come to grips with who Jesus is. That's the reason why He's embarking, you see.

Here occurs the first of what you might call the nature miracles. Jesus showing His authority over the inclement forces of nature. But it seems to me that encapsuled here is the illustration that Jesus wants to put to Peter and James and John and to all who will follow Him in the centuries to come.

Of the sort of life that they may be called to live on following Him. When the road is rough and steep, well that might be when you are following Jesus. Or when the waves are high and the wind is furious, that might occur at the point of you following the Lord Jesus.

Then He got into the boat and His disciples followed Him. I'm referring to the embarking. You see, our Lord Jesus wants people to follow Him who are genuine.

Do you remember the story in the Old Testament of Gideon's army? He was one of the only commanders of an army who got too many people in his forces. And so he spent some time trying to thin down the ranks. What he really wanted was soldiers who he could trust when the battle was at its worst.

I wear a Rolex watch. Hope that's impressed you. Cost about two and a half thousand pounds.

Only I bought it in Kuala Lumpur and it cost me ten pounds. And I nearly convinced an Indian in Karachi airport that this was a genuine thing. It's the middle of the night, he was tired and I was tired and he was a merchant in jewels actually.

And eventually I sort of pulled the plug on what I'd been showing him and said, well, that's not real. Gideon wanted real men to follow Him who he could trust. Jesus wants real followers in His kingdom aboard His ship.

Just to change the metaphor. Look at the 18th verse again. When Jesus saw the crowd around Him, He gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake.

Why did He want to get away from this crowd? Well you see, there were those in the crowd who had some inclinations as to the truth of what Jesus taught and maybe some ideas of following Him. But they weren't really totally committed. So Jesus thins down the rank, so to speak.

And when these other two erstwhile disciples come along in the 18th and 19th and 20th verses as it's described, Jesus again rejects them. He does so, well, because they haven't really appreciated the cost factor in embarking alongside Him. Not only just for a sea journey, this is only symbolic of a lifetime.

So you see, in the 23rd verse when you read, then He got into the boat and His disciples, what you have here is an illustration of men who really are being tested as to their alleged determination to follow the Lord Jesus Christ through thick and thin. Are you prepared to do that? To follow Him to that degree? That was an amazing event, wasn't it, in the airplane of the British Airways pilot when he was sucked out of the cockpit. I want to make a prediction.

That since 10 days or so ago when that event happened, most BA pilots had a look at the nuts and bolts that hold the perspex or whatever it is. On their cockpit. Don't you think so? A risky job being a pilot.

A risky vocation to follow the Lord Jesus. Because you see, this particular lake that the disciples are going across, it sometimes looks terribly calm, but it can be whipped up into a treacherous sea. There's a gap in the southwest of the mountains of Encircle and a wind whips down there very often at night, which incidentally is the best time to go fishing.

That's what made the fishing industry in those days so precarious. And as the disciples start out, you'll discover in Mark's gospel, because Mark is drawing information from Peter, and it's an eyewitness account, it's night, it's evening, and they're setting off with the Lord Jesus Christ on a journey that's going to be hazardous. And that's symbolic of the life that the Lord Jesus calls you to.

I was thinking of my dear, dear friends, Peter and Colleen, when preparing this address. After Tanzania? Because they want to? No. Because they believe that this is where God wants to take them, with three little children.

And it's not an easy decision for them to fall in with. But they believe that it's the impulse of the Spirit that has caused them to come to this conclusion, that they are to leave the United Kingdom for a few years. His disciples follow him as they embark into the boat.

And the boat casts anchor, and they sail away. The embarking. But then? Then the panicking.

Without warning. That's how it often happens in the Christian life. Trouble brews, just without warning.

A furious storm comes up. The NIV is trying to grapple at getting across the force of the original, which gives the impression that there is more to this storm than just the natural. In fact, Matthew uses a word.

There's a shaking. A furious shaking. You don't normally talk about the sea shaking, do you? Talk about the earth shaking.

Well, it's the same sort of word as would be used to describe an earthquake. There's more in this than meets the eye. This is a test.

Not just as to the competence of these men as sailors, for most of them were, but a test as to their determination to really be following the Lord Jesus through thick and thin. Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, but Jesus was sleeping. Our Lord Jesus was delightfully human, wasn't he? Delightfully human.

Everybody thought that Martin Luther got it right in that carol, away in a manger. I like the carol. Not too sure that when he said, the cattle are lowing, but little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes.

I'm not too sure that dear Luther had any right to say that. Why didn't he cry? Our Lord Jesus is delightfully human. And here you've got some indication as to his humanity.

He's had a heavy day, a heavy program. He feels so tired. Crossing the Sea of Galilee is not a long job, even in those days with the boats that they had then, an hour or so.

But he takes the coxswain's seat, and there's a pillow there because that's where very often passengers would sit, and he goes off to sleep. He's so fatigued. I'm glad the Lord Jesus got fatigued.

I sometimes get incredibly tired myself. I had a feeling of fatigue that came upon me this morning when I was preaching. Most strange experience.

Jesus was sleeping, delightfully human. But if ever there was a more unfortunate time for Jesus to sleep, it was this. Why? Well, I've already told you.

A furious storm came up on the lake. Sometimes, though some of you may find this hard to take, but I could prove it from other examples in Scripture, sometimes the disciples are almost impudent in the way they respond to Jesus. They see Him taking a well-earned rest, and they come to Him, and in the NIV's translation, they say, Lord, save us, we're going to drown.

Moffat puts it, Teacher, are we to drown? For all you care. Is that all you care about us? There were a number of occasions when the disciples were so blind to the majesty and the distinctiveness of our Lord Jesus that they associated Him almost as being one of themselves, and they would respond with impudence. Don't you care? It's time for you to sleep.

You can't scold the disciples, not unless you turn the finger of scolding on yourself, because there are times when, if not by word, certainly by demeanor, you too have been impudent in the company of the Lord Jesus. Don't you care? You're sleeping, and there's this raging storm, and our life is in the balance. I've been thinking a lot today about the Jehovah's Witnesses.

They plague me as a movement. I have a very deep, felt love for every individual Jehovah's Witness. I've wept before the Lord and asked Him many an occasion to release from the clutches of a watchtower so many dear, honest, good-living people.

The reason why they've been at the back of my mind is that heart-rending story of the couple from Cyprus, you remember, who got the…it was a little girl, a little boy, I forget which, who got leukemia. And they felt that, well, they can't have a blood transfusion for a child because it's against the teaching of Scripture. And really, it's a misunderstanding on their part, having picked up this line of thought from the watchtower society.

I'm so glad that the little infant got the blood transfusion, and pray for the parents that their consciences will be at rest, and that ultimately they'll come to a full understanding of the liberty that there is in the Lord Jesus, and the freedom that we have for seeking medical help for ourselves and for our children. But you say you're going down a tangent. Typically, you are.

Why? Well, the reason is this, you see. These disciples have to have a much greater estimate of the Lord Jesus than they have at this moment. With a degree of impudence, they have come to Him and said, don't you really care? Is this a time for you to be asleep? His deity is veiled, you see.

But they're not quite sure who He is. Now, I believe that this incident has been particularly constructed by the Holy Spirit to dawn into the experience of the disciples, because they are going to learn through this encounter a little bit more as to the divine nature as well as the human nature of our Lord Jesus. You could go through the Psalms, and if I had time I would take you into at least four or five quotations, but at least you can check up for yourself the one that Gustav read.

You can go through the Psalms, you can go through the Old Testament, and you will see that one of the distinctive characteristics of Yahweh, Jehovah, is that He is behind the ebb and flow of the tide. He is behind the piercing wind. He is the one that can speak and the waters are stilled.

He is the one who commands and the wind will blow. To God belongs the authority of the world, and when God steps into the world in order to declare that He is none other than God Himself, He will at times perform miracles of nature to demonstrate His deity. So it wasn't a tangent that I went off at a moment or two ago.

It was deliberate to underline this point that as our Lord Jesus gets up, having rebuked His disciples, He then addresses the winds and the waves, and we are told it was completely calm. The embarking, the panicking, the questioning. The men were amazed, verse 27, and asked, what kind of man is this? The men were amazed.

You see, Jesus is an enigmatic character, isn't He? I mean by that, it's difficult to pigeonhole Him. But He's delightfully human. He eats, He thirsts, He rides on a donkey, He attends parties, He watches children playing, He makes puns, He puts out riddles.

He's delightfully human. He's awfully divine. The way He teaches, the way He handles words, the way He addresses situations when those who are buckled by sickness come across His path.

I once heard a preacher say that Christians ought to be naturally supernatural and supernaturally natural. Glad I was able to say that, actually. I was wondering if I'd get that all mixed up.

I thought actually he was engaging in a bit of a hyperbole, because with the great concerns that this particular dear man had to indicate that Christians can be used by God in the area of the miraculous, I don't think it's quite like that. But that is a fantastic description of our Lord Jesus. He was naturally supernatural.

He was supernaturally natural. There He is asleep one moment, and the next moment He's standing up addressing the winds and the waves. Now, when a man does that sort of thing, it produces for untaught people a problem.

Who is this man? Because most people don't behave in such a fashion as this. They're amazed. Some of you will find this hard to believe, because you don't know me very well.

You maybe just have come in this evening for the first time. It's your premier appearance at the tab. We do hope you'll make it a habit.

But this is what I declare. Even today when I study the life of Jesus, I'm fascinated. I'm a preacher because I can't help being a preacher.

I have never been more convinced about the Lord Jesus Christ in my life than I am at this very moment. I am absolutely magnetized by this man, who he is, what he did. This delightful combination of the natural and the supernatural.

And he does amaze me. And the question that is always being placarded in front of me, just in case I happen to have shifted my opinions a bit, which I haven't ever since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, I believe that Jesus was the Son of God. But the question is always coming, who really am I? And I have to say, well, you're more.

You're more than just ordinary, though you are ordinary. You're more than just human, though you are human. The men were amazed and asked, what kind of man is this? And don't you see that's the most important question that the Bible is shooting out to everybody who reads its pages.

What kind of man is this? It's a supreme question for every thinking person to consider and to answer. What kind of man is this? Why does the Lord Jesus have the disciples on the Lake of Galilee? Well, surely you've gathered it by now. He has them there because He wants to teach them in an audiovisual fashion the very implications of the Sermon on the Mount.

He has not only given them distilled wisdom. He is not only a kingly figure. He is the King.

He's not only given them wise sayings. He is the essence of wisdom. He is the logos.

He is God's own word to the world. And He wants them to see Him in all His power, in all His majesty, relating to them, yet being unrelated, near and yet distant, imminent and yet transcendent. You can pile the opposites up.

They all converge and cohere as they demonstrate, as they define who Jesus is. So these men in their puzzlement say, what kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey Him. So we rush to the Old Testament Scriptures and we discover there that the only person who controls the flood and the wind, the tides, the rivers, that the whole of nature is none other than Jehovah God.

Who is this man? It's a rhetorical question. That means, snuggled into the question is its own answer. He is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Jesus is always trying to tease this answer out of the disciples, as the Holy Spirit is always trying to bring this answer out from the depths of your conviction. Who am I, says Jesus? You are the Christ. You are God's own Son.

There wasn't just one storm. No more than there was only just one prodigal son. I was preaching on the prodigal son at Little Hampton last Sunday, and my argument was this.

There were two prodigal sons. There was a son who was in the distant country, and there was a son at home who was distant from the heart of his father. Two areas of prodigality.

Now in this occasion, you've got two storms. There's this natural storm, the climactic storm, but then there is the storm within the heart of the disciples, and the hardest one to still is not the one in terms of wind and waves. The hardest one to still is that within the breast of the disciples that cause them to be so impudent, and don't you see my friend, that's the case with you, with dear Peter and Colleen, with Dave and Irene Hansen, with John and Jean, with a hundred noble people I know who are the four frontiers of the kingdom, are in Pakistan, Afghanistan, you name it, wherever there are those who are ministering hand to hand, knuckle to knuckle encounter with the evil one, then there is the potential for storm.

There is the potential for doubt. So Jesus gets up in his sublime majesty and he quietens the fears of people as he speaks to them and says, you really do know who I am? And therefore whatever the size of the waves, hear me metaphorically, whatever the velocity of the wind, it's all under control. It's all in my hands.

Oh you of little faith, says Jesus, I want you to have more faith, and your faith will grow as you realize that when you follow me, not just on this sea but on the seas that lie ahead in the years that are to come, that I've got everything under my control. I told a story here, one of my earliest addresses twenty years or so ago, of a little coloured boy who had a sweet tooth, and he had the delightful experience of falling into a huge bowl of treacle. And on the point of total immersion, he was heard to pray, Lord give me a capacity equal to my opportunity.

That's what the disciples need here. That's what you need, a capacity for faith equal to your opportunity to exercise it. Who is this man? He's none other than Jesus, the representative of Yahweh.

You've seen Him, you've seen God. He's come into the world to take away the consequences of sin in your life, to offer Himself hideous, to a hideous death on the cross, to be raised again in the power of an endless life, and through that victory to make possible a calm to sweep over your soul so that though you're in a boat, the elements are agin you. You can cope because you've got peace within that the Lord Jesus has granted you.

It is His world. He does control circumstances. He loves you and has you in the palm of His hands on the assumption that you have committed your life to Him, having confessed your sins and benefited by His salvation.

Let us pray. Father, we thank you again for the delightful humanity of our Lord Jesus. We're glad that He got tired, glad at times when He seemed to be impatient, glad at times when He stopped and talked to children, glad when there is some semblance of humour in His teaching which seemed to indicate that He had a real sense of knowing what it was to laugh, glad that He was a man of joy, glad that He went to parties, glad that He rubbed shoulders with ordinary folk like us, and yet Lord, we're held in awe in His presence.

At times we want Him near us, at times when we feel our sin, we say, Depart from us, for we're not like you. We're glad that there's every evidence that He's more than just a man, more than just the Son of Man. He's the Son of God.

And we reach out now, beloved Saviour, and we ask you, calm the storm in the breast of any heart here, and give us all an ability to move through this world under your superintendence, and even when the way is rough and steep, even when the waves are high and the wind is contrary, help us to appreciate that with you on board, with a nail pierced hand in our own, there's no need for us to be afraid, whether in England, Tanzania, Pakistan, or in the Kingdom, for where we are, there, O blessed Christ, by your Spirit, you are too. Thank you, and Amen.