Sermon Notes February 17, 2013

Sermon Text: Luke 9:1-17; John 6:4, 22-59

Scripture Reading: 2 Peter 3:1-18

Sermon Title: The Disciples Commissioned, Jesus’ Identity Questioned, and Jesus Unleavened

Review

This major unit in Luke (8:4-9:17) is broken into two sections: 8:4-21 and 8:22-9:17. The first unit is a call to faith: “Take heed therefore how you hear” (Luke 8:18). The second unit is designed to display the basis for belief, which is Jesus’ power and authority over all areas of life: He stills a storm (8:22-25), exorcises demons (8:26-39), heals a woman with an issue of blood (8:42b-48), resurrects a dead child (8:40-42a, 49-56), and provides food for the multitude (9:10-17). We have spent the past two week studying Luke 8:22-56 which identifies the character of God as being both supremely powerful and immeasurably compassionate, therefore, trustworthy.

Introduction

Today, we will conclude our study in this section of Luke. 

This passage marks a significant transition for the Lord Jesus Christ. Approximately half of His three-year ministry is over, and His death on the cross is about eighteen months away. [1]

This passage is broken into three minor sections, which are identified in the sermon title: The Disciples Commissioned (vv. 1-6), Jesus’ Identity Questioned (vv. 7-9), and Jesus Unleavened (vv. 10-17; John 6:22-59).

The Disciples Commissioned (vv.1-6)

vv. 1-2, 6

The promise of Luke 5:10 is beginning to be fulfilled: the disciples are “catching people.”

In 1 Corinthians 12 Paul presses the point that ministry in the Church is made up of the contribution of all the parts. Why? Because we were made in the image of God, we are designed to work in unique roles towards a common goal. The image we were made to reflect is that of the Trinity: Three divine persons in a continual circular dance that implies intimacy, equality, unity, and love – yet distinction. 

“When the church functions at its optimum, ministry is the sum total of what God is doing through everyone’s gifts” (Greg Ogden). 

Here Jesus gives the disciples power and authority. Authority is the right to do something, while power is the ability to do something. Here Jesus is preparing the disciples for His departure by modeling true discipleship. True discipleship is training and empowering others to discover and use their gifts for the glory of God and the good of the Church. 

Much wrong theology and practice have been derived from a misinterpretation of this passage. There is a reason Jesus gave the disciples authority over all demons and diseases (v. 1) along with the message of the kingdom of God (v. 2) and the gospel (v. 6).

If their message was to be validated and believed, there needed to be a way to attest to its divine origin. Such miraculous confirmation was no longer needed after the completion of the NT. Even by the end of the book of Acts, miracles were fading from the scene as the apostles disappeared. Paul healed people early in his ministry, but toward the end of his life, he did not heal Trophimus (2 Timothy 4:20) and advised Timothy not to have healing faith or find a healer, but to treat his recurring stomach ailment with wine (1 Timothy 5:23). Since the completion of the NT, a messenger’s message can be measured against the inspired, infallible, inerrant standard of God’s Word. [1]

I think it is important to again be reminded that of the myriad of miracles Jesus could have performed or could have commissioned the disciples to perform in order to validate their message, He chose to relieve human suffering, showing God as an involved and compassionate God. 

vv. 3-5

Again, much wrong theology and practice have been derived from this passage. This is not a call to poverty for all messengers of Christ. The instruction regarding their initial commissioning was to teach them trust for future missions. This is proven by the Lord’s reference to these verses in the upper room eighteen months later. “When I sent you out without money belt and bag and sandals, you did not lack anything did you? They said, ‘No, nothing’” (Luke 22:35). Then, the Lord said to them, but now, whoever has a money belt is to take it along, likewise also a bag, and whoever has no sword is to sell his coat and buy one” (v. 36). 

The disciples’ practice of staying in one place is designed to contrast that of philosophers, swindlers, and false teachers who went from house to house begging for money. 

To a Jewish man, shaking the dust off his feet was a common gesture which represented judgment.

Jesus’ Identity Questioned (vv. 7-9)

Possibly plagued by his guilty conscience (Proverbs 28:1), this is the same Herod that beheaded John the Baptist (Mark 6:14-29). Herod’s question is taken in view of Peter’s profession in Luke 9:18-20.

Jesus Unleavened (vv. 10-17; John 6:4, 22-59) 

Other than Christ’s resurrection, the feeding of the five thousand is the only miracle recorded in all four gospels. “The feeding of five thousand men, along with surely an equal number of women and children, was the largest work of divine creative power since creation week and the restructuring of the earth after the  flood” (MacArthur). [1]

Who were the crowd who surrounded our Lord in this remote place, poor and helpless without any food? This is a picture of mankind. We are a company of poor sinners, in the middle of a wicked world, without strength or power to save ourselves and in great danger of dying from spiritual famine. Who is the gracious teacher who had compassion on this starving multitude in the wilderness? It is Jesus himself, always compassionate and kind, always ready to show mercy, even to the ungrateful and evil. He has not changed. The heart of man can never be satisfied with the things of this world. It is always empty and hungry and thirsty and dissatisfied until it comes to Christ. [2]

We absolutely cannot understand the meaning of this miracle unless we hear from John what happened the next day (John 6:4, 22).

We have a tendency to wonder where God is when things look bleak. Sometimes God’s will is not to relieve suffering and remove affliction. Jesus relieved the hunger and suffering of the 5,000 in Luke 9, however John tells us that the next morning during breakfast Jesus did not relieve their physical affliction. What was God doing? After all, they went to far greater lengths to pursue Jesus the next morning than they did the day before (getting on the boat, investigating where He was, and tracking him down). 

We can fully understand what Jesus meant in John 6 by looking to Exodus 12-13. Why? It was in Exodus 12-13 that our Lord instituted Passover and The Feast of Unleavened Bread. In John 6:4, John tells us it was Passover on the day Jesus fed the 5,000. Therefore, “the next day” mentioned in John 6:22 means it was during The Feast of Unleavened Bread that Jesus refused to give them breakfast.

Like those who longed for breakfast in Luke 9, the Israelites longed for deliverance from the harsh Egyptian taskmaster. For 400 years the Israelites waited, and waited, and waited for the Lord. Finally, prior to their deliverance, the Lord instructed the Israelites, “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel” (Exodus 12:14-15). To be cut off from Israel meant to be killed (Leviticus 20:2-3). 

The Feast of Unleavened Bread commemorated the fact that they had to leave in a hurry (Exodus 12:31-34, 39). This is not a minor detail. This is the main detail regarding The Feast of Unleavened Bread. We groan, grow impatient, and struggle living in a fallen flesh in the midst of a fallen world. Leaven is a picture of sin (1 Corinthians 5). The point is this: You groan and grow impatient with this world, but deliverance is coming. However, deliverance will come unexpectedly and abruptly. Those who will be delivered are those who are forgiven from sin, as evidenced by satisfaction in Jesus regardless of life’s circumstances. In Exodus 12-13 the Lord was telling the people how to get ready for deliverance. To be dressed for departure is to be dress without leaven (holiness).

I don’t know about you, but much of the time I still feel like I am in Egypt. Much of the time I feel like I am in bondage, being beaten, in chains, and forced to bow under the whip of a cruel taskmaster. Oftentimes my hope is that this life will end and Heaven will come. I just want relief from my fight with sin. I need a break from myself. 

Because of this fact, in John 6 Jesus was communicating to the crowd, “There is something you need more deeply than even food and it is me.” The crowds response was, “We only want you to deliver us. We don’t want you. We want what you can do for us. We don’t want you. What good will you do us if you will not deliver us.?” That is why Jesus calls himself the bread of life. Jesus is saying, “I am the unleavened bread that you must eat as you journey through this life into the promised land of Heaven. If you follow me for any other reason but for me myself, you will never be satisfied as you journey through this harsh and difficult world.”

My restlessness and exhaustion in this life functions to remind me that this world is not my home. I am motivated to strive for obedience and trust because of the promise of abrupt deliverance and a restful eternity. Not that sin is good, but the struggle is good because it reminds us that our hope is in the future.

From John Calvin’s Institutes:

“By our tribulations God weans us from excessive love of this present life. Whatever kind of tribulation presses upon us, we must ever look to this end: to accustom ourselves to contempt for the present life and to be aroused thereby to meditate upon the future life. For since God knows best how must we are inclined by nature to a brutish love of this world, he uses the fittest means to draw us back and to shake off our sluggishness, lest we cleave to tenaciously to that love. Then only do we rightly advance by the discipline of the cross, when we learn that this life, judged in itself, is troubled, turbulent, unhappy in countless ways and in no respect clearly happy; that all those things which are judged to be its goods are uncertain, fleeting, vain, and vitiated by many intermingled evils. From this, at the same time, we conclude that in this life we are to seek and hope for nothing but struggle. For this we must believe: that the mind is never seriously aroused to desire and ponder the life to come unless it be previously imbued with contempt for the present life.

But let believers accustom themselves to a contempt of this present life that engenders no hatred of it or ingratitude against God. Indeed, this life, however crammed with infinite miseries it may be, is still rightly to be counted among those blessings of God which are not to be spurned…

We begin in this present life, through various benefits, to taste the sweetness of the divine generosity in order to whet our hope.

Of course, this life is never to be hated except in so far as it holds us subject to sin; it is still fitting for us to be so affected either by weariness or hatred of it that, desiring its end, we may also be prepared to abide in it at the Lord’s pleasure, so that our weariness may be far from all murmuring and impatience. For it is like a sentry post at which the Lord has posted us, which we must hold until he recall us.” 

From Richard Baxter’s The Saint’s Everlasting Rest: 

“O my soul, do you stagger at the promises of God through unbelief? (Romans 4:20). I highly suspect you. Can God lie? Can He that is Truth itself be false? What need does God have to flatter or deceive you? Why should He promise you more than He will perform? Dare not to charge the wise, Almighty, faithful God with this! O wretched heart of unbelief, has God made you a promise of rest, and will you come short of it? But your feast, my Lord, is nothing to me without an appetite. You have set the delicacies of heaven before me; but unfortunately, I am blind and cannot see them. I am sick and cannot relish them. I am so paralyzed that I cannot put forth a hand to take them. I therefore, humbly beg this grace, that as you have opened heaven to me in Your Word, so YOU would open my eyes to see it, and my heart to delight in it. O Spirit of life, breathe your grace into me. Take me by the hand, and lift me from the earth, that may see what glory You have prepared for those who love You (1 Corinthians 2:9-10). Ah, my dear Lord, though I cannot say, "My soul longs after you" (Psalm 84:2), yet I can say, "I long for such a longing heart." "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matt. 26:4).”

Sources: 

1. MacArthur, John. The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Luke 1-5. Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2009.
2. Ryle, J.C. Luke. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 1997.

Sermon Notes February 10, 2013

Sermon Text: Luke 8:26-56
Sermon Title: Jesus: The Compassionate King
Scripture Reading: Hebrews 12:1-17

Context

This major unit in Luke (8:4-9:17) is broken into two sections: 8:4-21 and 8:22-9:17. The first unit is a call to faith: “Take heed therefore how you hear” (Luke 8:18). The second unit is designed to display the basis for belief, which is Jesus’ power and authority over all areas of life: He stills a storm (8:22-25), exorcises demons (8:26-39), heals a woman with an issue of blood (8:42b-48), resurrects a dead child (8:40-42a, 49-56), and provides food for the multitude (9:10-17). In summary, Jesus shows His power and authority over nature, demonic spirits, disease, delay, and death deems him trustworthy.

Last week we studied one facet of Jesus’ power: His power over nature. The point of our passage last week was as follows: Jesus’ power and authority shows that He can be trusted.

The point of our passage this week is as follows: In the storm, Jesus revealed that He is even more dangerous, unpredictable, and powerful as an earthquake on water. This week we see Jesus moving away from impersonal wind and waves to relieve the suffering of man. Although Jesus is inconceivably powerful and totally unpredictable, His compassion is immeasurable.

Review

From Tim Keller’s “The King’s Cross”:


"Mark has deliberately laid out this account using language that is parallel, almost identical, to the language of the famous Old Testament account of Jonah.

Both Jesus and Jonah were in a boat, and both boats were overtaken by a storm—the descriptions of the storm are almost identical.

Both Jesus and Jonah were asleep.

In both stories the sailors woke up the sleeper and said, “We’re going to die.”

And in both cases there was a miraculous divine intervention and the sea was calmed.

Further, in both stories the sailors then become even more terrified than they were before the storm was calmed.

Two almost identical stories—with just one difference.

In the midst of the storm, Jonah said to the sailors, in effect: “There’s only one thing to do. If I perish, you survive. If I die, you will live” (Jonah 1:12). And they threw him into the sea.

Which doesn’t happen in Mark’s story.

Or does it?

I think Mark is showing that the stories aren’t actually different when you stand back a bit and look at it with the rest of the story of Jesus in view.

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says, “One greater than Jonah is here,” and he’s referring to himself: I’m the true Jonah. He meant this:

Someday I’m going to calm all storms, still all waves.

I’m going to destroy destruction, break brokenness, and kill death.

How can he do that?

He can only do it because when he was on the cross he was thrown—willingly, like Jonah—into the ultimate storm, under the ultimate 
waves, the waves of sin and death.

Jesus was thrown into the only storm that can actually sink us—the storm of eternal justice, of what we owe for our wrongdoing. That storm wasn’t calmed—not until it swept him away.

If the sight of Jesus bowing his head into that ultimate storm is burned into the core of your being, you will never say, “God, don’t you care?”

And if you know that he did not abandon you in that ultimate storm, what makes you think he would abandon you in much smaller storms you’re experiencing right now?

And, someday, of course, he will return and still all storms for eternity.

If you let that penetrate to the very center of your being, you will know he loves you. You will know he cares. And then you will have the power to handle anything in life with poise."

God is not safe. God is not manageable. God is not predictable. However, as we will see this morning, God is compassionate and involved.


The point of our passage this week is as follows: In the storm, Jesus revealed that He is even more dangerous, unpredictable, and powerful as an earthquake on water. This week we see Jesus moving away from impersonal wind and waves to reveal His compassion in relieving the suffering of man.

Introduction

Along with the story about the storm, all three synoptic authors record the stories of the Gadarene demoniac, the woman with the issue of blood, and Jairus’s daughter.

The Demoniac: Jesus is compassionate in the dungeon (Luke 8:26-39)

v. 26: There is only one recorded instance of demonic activity in the Old Testament along with a few allusions to demons; (e.g., Leviticus 17:7; Deuteronomy 32:17; Psalm 106:37), Genesis 6:1-4, where demon-possessed men cohabitated with women (cf. 2 Peter 2:4-5; Jude 6). Outside of the gospels and Acts, there are no references to demon possession in the New Testament.¹

v. 27: The very word, demoniac, describes a man possessed by a demon and therefore, acting like a maniac. Luke tells us he had not worn clothes in a long time. Mark tells us that he was constantly cutting his body with sharp stones (Mark 5:5). Matthew tells us this violence was often directed at others (Matthew 8:28). 

v. 28: Like the demoniac of 4:34, “Let us alone! What business do we have with each other, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are – the Holy One of God!”, this one knew who Jesus was (contrast to the disciples in v. 25). Can you imagine the mystery of this demoniac? Verse 30 informs us that the “spokesman” for the demon referred to himself as “legion” because “many demons had entered him.” It is likely the demon was alluding to a huge number when he said “legion” because a legion had about six thousand soldiers.

v. 29: Emphasize how this represents (although we do not believe demons can possess regenerate people) the daily struggle we face against sin.

v. 30: discussed in v. 28 above

vv. 31-32: The demons immediately concede. The place of confinement for evil spirits (Revelation 20:1-3).

vv. 33-34: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).
“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers. Peter said to him, ‘Lord I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death’” (Luke 22:31-33).
“Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. For the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41).

v. 35-37: “Frightened” comes from the Greek word phobeo, which refers to extreme fear (the related noun phobos is the root of the English word “phobia.”

Remember the consistency with the disciple’s fear after Jesus calmed the storm? Why the fear following such a miraculous deed? Why were they more terrified in the calm than they were in the storm? Because Jesus was as unmanageable as the storm itself. The storm has immense power – they couldn’t control it. Jesus had infinitely more power, so they had even less control over him. [2]

For those of you who understand what I am talking about, the train of thought goes something like this: Yes, I understand I have no control over the most difficult circumstances in my life. However, I have less control over the God who is sovereign over them and because God is sovereign over all things, my inability to manage him makes me afraid. 

v. 38-39: “Since he knew enough to be saved, he knew enough to be a missionary. The priority for him was not further training, since he was the lone witness to the gospel in that region. Here is an example of God’s grace in the face of man’s rejection. Though they totally rejected Jesus, Jesus did not reject them, but left a missionary in their midst” (John MacArthur). [1]

How lonely must this man’s life have been?

A Dying Daughter and a Desperate Woman: Jesus is compassionate in disasterous nature, demonic spirits, disease, delay, and death.

Disease, Delay, and Death (Luke 8:40-56)

Remember, here is what we are trying to show here: Because Jesus was sent to reveal the character of God to us, we learn about what God is like by observing Jesus. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:15-16).
 He was “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). As He observed the outpouring of sorrow over the death of Lazarus, “He was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled” (John 11:33) and wept (v. 35). Jesus knew all along that He would raise Lazarus from the dead. However, Jesus was still grieved to tears over the ruinous effects of sin and suffering in the world.

The only thing that truly gets us up in the morning is the promise of a new heaven and a new earth from which disease, death, sorrow, and suffering will be forever banished (Revelation 21:1-5; Isaiah 65:17; 66:22).

vv. 40-43: Here we find two very contrasting souls. One was a man, the other a woman. One was rich, the other poor. One was a respected leader entrenched in society, one was an unclean outcast. But the principle transcends, “God gives grace to the humble” (1 Peter 5; James 4:6).

According to Leviticus 15:25, this woman’s condition would have rendered her ceremonially unclean, placing her in the social status of a leper.

Of all the impressive miracles He could have done to prove that He was God, Jesus chose to do those that relieved people’s suffering. Instead of flying off the pinnacle of the temple, He rescued His terrified disciples from a life-threatening storm. Instead of instantly creating a cow or a horse, He created food for thousands of hungry people. Instead of lifting up a mountain and casting it into the sea, He healed the sick and rasied the dead. His choice of miracles revealed not only Jesus’ deity, but also His divine compassion. [1]

v. 42b-48: Imagine the curiosity and panic the crowd, the disciples, and Jairus felt during this exchange between the woman and Jesus. When Jairus met Jesus he told Him that his daughter was almost dead.

v. 44: In the Old Testament the Lord commanded the men to have tassels on the four corners of their garments (Deuteronomy 22:12). The Greek verb translated touched is more accurately translated “clutched.”

v. 45-47: At first glance, this passage can be very confusing. What does it mean that Jesus felt power go out of Him, yet did not know who touched Him? How is it that Jesus can read the thoughts of the disciples and Pharisees, yet does not know who touched Him? Let me remind you of when we discussed the hypostatic union and the mediation by the Holy Spirit of Jesus incommunicable attributes.

v. 48-55: Imagine if Jairus knew of the centurion’s encounter with Jesus? Imagine the anxiety during all this. The woman with a chronic condition is getting attention instead of the little girl who has an acute condition. Jesus chooses to stop and talk with a woman who has just been healed. This makes no sense. It is absolutely irrational. In fact, it’s worse that than: It’s malpractice. If these two were in the same emergency room, any doctor who treated the woman first and let the little girl die would be sued. And Jesus is behaving like such a reckless doctor. Jairus and the disciples must be thinking, “What are you doing? Don’t you understand the situation? Hurry, or it will be too late. The little girl needs help from you now, Jesus. Hurry, Jesus, hurry. [2]

But precisely because of the delay both Jairus and the woman get far more than they asked for. Be aware that when you go to Jesus for help, you will both give to and get from him far more than you bargained for. Be patient, because the deal often doesn’t work out the way you expected. We have such delusions of grandeur that our self-righteousness and arrogance sometimes have to be knocked out of our heart’s by God’s delays. [2]

“Trust me, trust me,” Jesus continues to reiterate.

“Daughter” could be translated “Honey.” Jesus is only recorded saying this strong word of endearment once ever.

v. 56: “Amazed” translates a form of the verb which literally means “to stand outside oneself,” and is translated “He has lost His senses” in Mark 3:21. This “miracle induced fear” has been a consistent thread through this section in the storm (v. 25), the people of Gadara (v. 37), and the woman healed of her disease (v. 47).

Tim Keller, Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism

We wanted to share what one of the Sunday School classes is studying. In this video, Tim Keller answers questions at the The Veritas Forum regarding God, man, and the world in which live. This is a challenging and helpful discussion that deals with difficult questions Christians and non-Christians face in our age.  

Sermon Notes: February 3, 2013

Sermon Text: Luke 8:22-25; Mark 4:35-41

Sermon Title: Jesus, The True Jonah

Scripture Reading: Jonah 1:1-17

Read Sermon Text: Luke 8:22-25; Mark 4:35-41

Introduction

Mark includes a very important detail that Luke fails to mention, “On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side’” (Mark 4:35).

What day is Mark referring to? Mark is referring to the same day we have spent the past three weeks discussing. Jesus takes the disciples on a boat the same day He taught the parable of the soils. 

Context and Overview

Therefore, the context is set by the parable. In the parable Jesus was strongly cautioning His listeners to take very special care how they hear the Word of God. Although many people hear the Word of God, few people have the kind of heart Jesus described in Luke 8:15, “As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.”

In the boat, Jesus illustrates for the disciples what it means to be good soil hearers.

Faith is the key to a heart of good soil and fruitful hearing (Hebrews 11:6). A more familiar word for faith is trust. Luke records Jesus asking, “Where is your faith/trust?” (Luke 8:25). Mark records Jesus asking, “Have you still no faith/trust?” (Mark 4:40). In both instances Jesus is making a statement: You should be and have to be more trusting.

The faith in view here is not initial faith, but an applied faith that functions in the midst of pressure. It holds fast patiently (Luke 8:15). [1]

It is a faith that has depth of understanding and can be drawn upon in tough times. It is faith that “kicks in” and recognizes that God is in control, even in the face of disaster. It is trust in God’s Word even when circumstances seem contrary to its fulfillment.

This major unit in Luke (8:4-9:17) is broken into two sections: 8:4-21 and 8:22-9:17. The first unit is a call to faith: “Take heed therefore how you hear” (Luke 8:18). Why? “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). 

The second unit is designed to display the basis for belief, which is Jesus’ power and authority over all areas of life: He stills a storm (8:22-25), exorcises demons (8:26-39), heals a woman with an issue of blood (8:42b-48), resurrects a dead child (8:40-42a, 49-56), and provides food for the multitude (9:10-17). In summary, Jesus shows His power and authority over nature, demonic spirits, disease, and death.

The point of our passage this morning is simple: Jesus’ power and authority shows that He can be trusted.

Luke 8:22

What is important to notice here is that Jesus is the Word of God (John 1:1). Therefore, when Jesus said, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake,” He was broadcasting a seed into their hearts. 

Also, we must not picture a small row boat here. A fishing boat that could hold many disciples would’ve been a very large vessel. 

Luke 8:23

Matthew’s account describes this as so great a storm that the boat was being “swamped” by the waves (Matthew 8:24). The Greek word for “storm” in this text is “seismos,” meaning earthquake.

Truly, the geographical setting in which they were sailing would have been a perfectly conducive environment for an earthquake on the water. Given the Sea of Galilee’s topography, such a storm could descend onto the sea quickly without notice and, at night, could hardly be anticipated. The sea is some seven hundred feet below sea level and is depressed with hills, such as Mount Hermon, which is ninety-two feet high. The cold air from the mountains continually clashed with the warm air coming up from the Sea of Galilee, producing violent storms. [1]

Also, to give proper credit to the magnitude of the storm, it is helpful to be reminded that many of Jesus’ disciples were professional fishermen. The storm must have been an exceptional one for such a large vessel to take on water and experienced sailors to panic with certainty of their impending death.

Notice the contrast: The disciples are at the height of panic and worry while Jesus portrays rest.

Luke 8:24

Urgency is conveyed by the use of the double vocative (the vocative case is a noun that identifies a specific person) “Master, Master.” In Luke, the double vocative usually signifies great urgency and high emotion.

Mark includes another important detail we need to remember. Mark 4:38 has the disciples complaining that Jesus does not care about the urgency and danger of the matter. 

Luke 8:25

In this verse we have two questions which lead us to the application of the passage. The first question is asked by Jesus, “Where is your faith.” The second question is asked by the disciples, “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?”

This significance of the first question was already discussed earlier in the message. Jesus is making a statement: You should be and have to be more trusting. Trusting in what? Not simply in the fact that Jesus would save them. Sometimes Jesus doesn’t deliver from calamity. However, the trust Jesus expected here was a holding fast to the seed: “Let’s go to the other side.”

The point of our passage this morning is simple: Jesus’ power and authority shows that He can be trusted.

Therefore, what should we do because of what we have learned?

Isn’t it true that we are all guilty of reading the Gospels and quietly mocking the disciples for being so slow to “get it”? Not here though. This story hits home. This story resonates with all of us. 

Everyone who has ever tried to live a life of faith in this world has experienced this same scenario. Circumstances pounce unexpectedly like an earthquake and God seems to be absent. Everything is going wrong, you’re sinking, and God seems to be asleep, unaware, or indifferent. “If you loved me,” you think, “you would get involved while I am drowning.”

Now, before addressing the disciples’ question, let’s address the reason for their fear. The fear mentioned in Luke 8:25 has nothing to do with the storm itself. We can be certain of this fact because in verse 24 Luke tells us that there was a perfect calm after Jesus rebuked the wind and waves. So what were the disciples afraid of? 

Why were they more terrified in the calm than they were in the storm? Because Jesus was as unmanageable as the storm itself. The storm has immense power – they couldn’t control it. Jesus had infinitely more power, so they had even less control over him. [2]

For those of you who understand what I am talking about, the train of thought goes something like this: Yes, I understand I have no control over the most difficult circumstances in my life. However, I have less control over the God who is sovereign over them and because God is sovereign over all things, my inability to manage him makes me afraid. “He lets things happen that I don’t understand. He doesn’t do things according to my plan, or in a way that makes sense to me.”

What could have caused the disciples to rest as Jesus rested? What could have stilled the raging storm in the disciples’ hearts in the same way Jesus calmed the sea? 

If the disciples had understood that Jesus’ love and wisdom were as unbound as His power, they wouldn’t have been afraid. If you have a God great enough and powerful enough to be mad at because He doesn’t stop your suffering, you also have a God who’s great enough and powerful enough to have good and loving reasons that you can’t understand. You can’t have it both ways. Elizabeth Elliot put it beautifully in two brief sentences: “God is God, and since He is God, He is worthy of my worship and my service. I will find rest nowhere else but in His will, and that will is necessarily, infinitely, immeasurably, unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what He is up to.” [2]

Be careful lest you think I am moralizing the stories application. You moralize a passage when you make it primarily about you. This story isn’t first about you. This story is about Jesus.

What makes us so certain that this unmanageable, unsafe God can be trusted?

This brings us to the sermon title, “Jesus: The True Jonah.”

Keller on Jonah and Jesus

Tim Keller, King’s Cross: The Story of the World in the Life of Jesus, pp. 57-58:

Mark has deliberately laid out this account using language that is parallel, almost identical, to the language of the famous Old Testament account of Jonah.

Both Jesus and Jonah were in a boat, and both boats were overtaken by a storm—the descriptions of the storm are almost identical.

Both Jesus and Jonah were asleep.

In both stories the sailors woke up the sleeper and said, “We’re going to die.”

And in both cases there was a miraculous divine intervention and the sea was calmed.

Further, in both stories the sailors then become even more terrified than they were before the storm was calmed.

Two almost identical stories—with just one difference.

In the midst of the storm, Jonah said to the sailors, in effect: “There’s only one thing to do. If I perish, you survive. If I die, you will live” (Jonah 1:12). And they threw him into the sea.

Which doesn’t happen in Mark’s story.

Or does it?

I think Mark is showing that the stories aren’t actually different when you stand back a bit and look at it with the rest of the story of Jesus in view.

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says, “One greater than Jonah is here,” and he’s referring to himself: I’m the true Jonah. He meant this:

Someday I’m going to calm all storms, still all waves.

I’m going to destroy destruction, break brokenness, kill death.

How can he do that?

He can only do it because when he was on the cross he was thrown—willingly, like Jonah—into the ultimate storm, under the ultimate waves, the waves of sin and death.

Jesus was thrown into the only storm that can actually sink us—the storm of eternal justice, of what we owe for our wrongdoing. That storm wasn’t calmed—not until it swept him away.

If the sight of Jesus bowing his head into that ultimate storm is burned into the core of your being, you will never say, “God, don’t you care?”

And if you know that he did not abandon you in that ultimate storm, what make you think he would abandon you in much smaller storms you’re experiencing right now?

And, someday, of course, he will return and still all storms for eternity.

If you let that penetrate to the very center of your being, you will know he loves you. You will know he cares. And then you will have the power to handle anything in life with poise.

God is not safe. God is not manageable. God is not predictable. God is good. – my statement, not Keller’s

When through the deep waters I call you to go,

The rivers of woe shall not overflow;

For I will be with you, your troubles to bless,

And sanctify to you in your deepest distress.

The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose,

I will not, I will not desert to its foes;

That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,

I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.

Sources

1. Brock, Darrell. Luke 1:1-9:50. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1994.
2. Keller, Timothy. The King’s Cross. New York, New York: Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2011.