Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro - Welcome to MBF

Intro to sermon prep, when we start to think of storms and what those are and what they look like sometimes we start to become overwhelmed

When we hear of tragedies like the school shooting in Florida we start to become depressed by the thought of that could actually happen and maybe we start to question God

Some of you may be here today and you know for a fact you are in a storm, I believe I am in a storm, and I have been struggling to understand why and what todo in the storm

The title however may be somewhat misleading like we could actually understand the storms of life

Why they happen

When they will occur

How we stop them

How to avoid them

How we grow and move on from them

We start to become overwhelmed by the thought of this

If you and I are honest we know that there is no way we will ever understand the storms of life

So let’s look at the storms of the Bible

If you still don't believe that you and I cant understand storms maybe you believe there is no way you and I will be able to understand the different storms that come up

But yes storms come up out of no where at times, and other times we are sent head long into the storm, and still other times we create the storm ourselves

So what do we do when storms comes because as we have discussed so far storms will happen

we know storms come up out of know where and frankly those are the effects of living in a fallen sinful world

we also know that valleys must happen as a result of the mountains

as we just read we see that Jesus sometimes sends us into the storms and we must weather them

we also know if we are honest some if not most of the storms we encounter are because of us, we put ourselves in situations that cause us storms in life

if we cant understand them what do we do

what do we do in life when we hear about the tragedies like what happened in Florida

I am glad you asked

Church when we are faced with storms in life

we press in Jesus, we anchor ourselves to the truth of Jesus Christ

those maybe church words that we say that we really don't understand, when we know people are in a storm some of the church things we say to them are

Jesus Loves You

I’m Praying For You

At times you and I have to say truth to ourselves so we can hear it ourselves

The truth is Jesus and the Word of God which is Jesus

Rather than freaking out and running around trying to figure everything out

we go to truth

You see in the storms we talked about this morning the safest place to be was where Jesus was,

When storms come in life, like health problems, money problems, relationship problems, when you are struggling with whatever life situation you are in the

Safest place to be is in the boat if Jesus is in the boat

There are times that Jesus calls us to go into the storm, and once we are in the storm if we are not carful we get side tracked

our focus is no longer on Jesus and it is on the storm, just like in the previous storm we start to worry when are focus in no longer on truth

When Jesus is outside of the boat the safest place to be is outside the boat

Do you start to understand that no matter what is going on the safest place to be is next to Jesus

I know what you are thinking, is the safest place to be in the belly of a whale

I am not sure the safest place to be is the belly of a whale, cause in the belly of a whale we start to doubt that the safest place to be is the belly of a whale

Paul is writing a letter to believers in Rome and explaining why storms happen in life, and to be very honest is it because we tell Jesus we know better

This is the picture I see when I read this passage of scripture

A teenager cause we have all been a teenager before but a teenager goes to their parents and say look mom and dad I know better than you so I would like to do this and that and I am going to do this and that no matter what you say because I know better than you

When I read this passage that is what I see, in fact I think that is what we as a world and a nation and a people have said to God, and God has said, ok you think you know better than the creator of the universe, you think you know better than the inventor of dirt

And God doesn't leave us but I do believe that he like the scripture said allows us to venture out on our own because we think we know better

So when those storms come, like Jonah thinking he knows better, or in when we think we know better

How do we as believers begin to make sense or what do we do when we find ourselves in these types of storms

like the other storms the safest place to be is where Jesus is

We press in and we begin to anchor ourselves to the truth

what is the truth again

Jesus Christ is truth and sometimes it doesn't always make sense in the storm to press into Jesus but we know that Jesus is truth and in the midst of the storm that is what we anchor ourselves to is truth

This is truth you anchor yourselves to

,

Psalm 42:11

In the midst of those storms we anchor ourselves to scripture and begin to do it

This is pressing in to Jesus

Resting in Jesus in the midst of the storm, giving Jesus our burdens to Jesus in the midst of the storm, allowing the body of Christ to be the body of Christ in the midst of the storm

Can you and I really every make sense of the storm?

Probably not, but we can know the truth!

We can know that Jesus is the truth and find peace and rest in Him

Church for us to survive the storms of life we must press into Jesus

I want to challenge you to anchor yourself to Jesus this week, and if you are in a storm I would challenge you to anchor yourself to Jesus by spending time reading His Word this week.

Maybe you are in the thick of the storm and you are not sure which way is up or down or to the right or left, I would challenge you to spend some time in the Psalms this week, and allow the Holy Spirit to breath over you.

Closing

The Altar is open

Maybe you do no know Jesus or the truth as your personal savior, there will be people down here to help you with that

maybe you need to just spend some time in prayer alone or maybe you need to bring someone up to pray with you

the altar is open