A God Worthy of Our Trust: 2016 Gospel of Luke #29
This is an exposition of Luke 8:22-25. This message by Pastor Rod Harris was delivered at Trinity Baptist Church on Sunday morning, September 11, 2016.
Intro:
How big is your God? What is He capable of? Is He bigger than your problems, burdens and concerns? Oh yes, He is Lord, but what does that mean? What power, what authority goes with the title? Isaiah says, “He holds the waters of the earth in the hollows of His hand.” The water area of the earth is 139,950,284 miles or 320,000,000 cubic miles of water volume. The prophet says He cups it in the hollow of His hand. He further declares that God “Marks off the Heavens with the breadth of His hand.” The nearest star is 3.5 light years from earth. That means traveling at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second) it would take you 3.5 years to get to the closest one. Yes, He is a big God. He spoke and this glorious, gigantic, complicated and fantastic universe came into being just by the power of His word. He is a powerful God but all of that is “out there”. It is distant and unrelated. Sure He created all of this but how does that relate to me where I am right now? How is he lord in my world?
That is a fair question. This morning we are going to consider an event from the lives of the apostles. An event that brought them face to face with the Lordship of Jesus in dramatic fashion. We will consider that encounter and draw some conclusions for our own lives. Our text is found in the 8th chapter of Luke’s gospel.
Text: Luke 8:22-25
The person of the Lord Jesus is at the very heart of our faith. I know it is amazing what a seminary education can do for a person. Four years of college and three years of seminary and I’ve discovered that Christ is the heart of Christianity. The truth is, I didn’t learn that in college or seminary. I think I’ve really just begun to understand that. The trappings of Christianity have so clouded the picture that Christ is often the last thing we notice. You know that I’m a firm believer in the necessity of doctrine. What we believe matters. But doctrine is not the heart of our faith – the Lord Jesus is. The apostle Paul said to the Corinthians – “I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” The early church preached Christ. Christ as the source of life. Christ as the meaning and purpose of life. Our faith is in Jesus Christ. His person, his life, his work. So the question before us this morning is, “Who is Jesus?”
After a long and wearisome day of ministry our Lord turned to the 12 and said, “Let’s take a boat ride to the other side of the lake.” They climb into a boat and set out across the Sea of Galilee. It was a beautiful day for a boat ride. The quiet of the lake and the gentle rocking of the boat was the perfect respite for the weary band. But things were about to change. We begin at the 12:22…
As we look at this encounter we discover that…
Thesis: As Creator, Sustainer, and the Goal of all things our Lord can be trusted whatever may come.
I say this is what we discover because of the question the 12 raise in the 12:25, “Who then is this that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?”
There are 3 principles I think we can draw from this encounter.
- Storms are inevitable in this fallen, sin-cursed world. (8:22-23)
- When storms arise our hope rests in a Sovereign Savior. (8:24)
- His deliverance creates unrest but ultimately leads to the deepening of our faith. (8:25)
Conclusion:
Life in this sin-cursed world is filled with heartache and struggle. Storms, emotional, physical and spiritual are inevitable. Being God’s child does not excuse you from such storms. There is no opt out. By the way, they were following Jesus when they got in that boat and set sail. They were in the “will of God.” In fact, they were being taken to school to learn that their hope rested in a Sovereign Savior with power sufficient to deliver. For the child of God, storms are God’s way of reminding us that the one in the boat with us is worthy of our trust.