Sermon Tone Analysis

The King’s Authority

Roger McCort – April 10, 2022 – For Grass Valley Corps ONLINE

Transcript

We are working through the Book of Matthew and we are in Matthew starting at Chapter 8 today.

So if you've got a Bible handy, grab it.

Look to Matthew Chapter 8, start at verse 23.

It's talking about Jesus, and it says 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 covered with the waves.

But Jesus himself was asleep.

And they came to him and woke him, saying, save us, Lord, we’re perishing!

And he said to them, why are you afraid you, men of little faith?

Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and it became perfectly calm.

And the men were amazed and said, what kind of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey him?

Uh, for those of you trying to follow along, you might notice your words could be a little bit different.

I'm using the new American Standard Bible today, which is a fairly literal translation in the word for word sense.

This is a great place to start a story about Jesus in Matthew.

Remember he's telling a story about the Jesus that he knew and believed in.

He thought Jesus was this wonderful person, this Messiah, this long-awaited savior of the people of Israel and he also believed that Jesus was, in some miraculous, amazing, understandable form, actually God in flesh and he was trying to make sure that everyone was aware of the reasons he believed these things to be true and we are actually starting here at verse 23.

We're looking at the middle section of three sets of three miracles each that Matthew has described because he wanted to get lots of evidence out there.

So he he did things in sets of three.

And then he did three sets of three, just to kind of make sure that everyone got the point now.

This story has Jesus doing something.

Uh, first he's sleeping during a storm?

Yeah, gotta remember who Jesus, his main followers, were at this time and what he was doing in this boat.

So they'd been in Capernaum, where they had just been doing miracles.

And people have been crowding in because of the healings that Jesus had been doing.

And they really, really wanted to.

See that or be part of that experience and they became so many people and it became all about the healings, but Jesus was always about the teaching and so.

He said that he was his key disciples.

The main people following him look, we're going to go.

Away right?

So they got into this boat.

And take off across the Sea of Galilee.

Now where did he find a boat?

Remember, a number of his followers were fishermen, and this, Capernaum, it's a fishing village.

It is very fishing oriented in most of its economy, and so finding a boat.

Wasn't difficult, in fact, Peter and Andrew also lived in this village and they were were.

Fisherman in their previous life before Jesus called them, they started following him.

So it wouldn't have been difficult to get a boat and they've head out across the sea.

These are experienced sailors, but the Sea of Galilee is known for its tempestuous squalls, things that would blow up and they would terrify even the most experienced of sailor because it was so easy to capsize these small and mid sized boats.

And as they are out there, fighting for their lives in the midst of this storm, trying to make sure their boat stays afloat, Jesus is like curled up taking a nap.

I I love that.

Hey, when tough times come, Jesus says take a nap apparently.

And the people who are with him are panicking and they're.

Like we're gonna die Lord, please wake up you've got to save us.

And he's like, what is it now?

You have so little faith.

And he stands up and he just says to the winds and the wave.

According to one of the other disciples who told the same story, all he says is.

Be still.

And it switches like a light switch from Amazing Storm that is threatening everyone life to glassy stillness, calm skies.

I mean, even if the rain and wind had just turned off, that would have been enough.

For me, but to to.

Completely calm a storm.

To see the waves go from sloshing back and forth and coming over the top of the vessel.

To just being.

Glassy still that would have freaked me out.

And it freaked out his followers and says they were amazed that that's kind of a friendly American translation to say that they were amazed what kind of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey him.

Well, there's an interesting question.

How many people?

How many human beings do you know who can get the winds?

And the sea to obey them.

Yeah, I spent most of this last week out in in Seattle up on the northwest coast of the United States here and looking out over Puget Sound and in a ferry boat.

And there are waves that go by and some were small and somewhere large and not a single one did what I asked it to.

There were a couple of times I'm like OK hold off waves hold off.

I'm trying to get a picture of this thing on the shoreline.

This tide pool, but no the waves came in and washed over it.

Even though I didn't want them to.

And then there was another time when I'm like OK, I want to take pictures of the waves.

Let's get some big ones crashing and crashing and not a single wave came and made a big splash so I didn't get any.

Great wave pictures.

Because the winds and the waves do not obey me.

They obeyed Jesus.

That's the point Matthew is trying to make with this story.

There's a lot of other things we can pull out of here that are important about faith and about being a disciple and about when and we when we should worry and when we shouldn't worry.

But you know what Matthew is trying to tell us something about Jesus here.

What kind of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey him?

Let's go forward in this story.

And let's see how these this is, the first.

Example like I said, there's three examples we're going to see how they line up.

Here's the second one.

Starts at verse 28.

When they came to the other side into the country of the guardians.

I'm sorry, I've just said the wrong word.

Then the country of the gadarenes.

Two men who were demon possessed met him as they were coming out of the tombs.

They were so extremely violent that no one could pass by that way.

Now let me when we talk about the place that I said the wrong name for the gather.

Means the country of the gathering.

So this is like on the other side of the Sea of Galilee, from where they had been.

So they kind of sailed short distance across the lake through the storm through the column they get over to the other side and the area that they've just gone to is kind of a mixed Jewish and Greek.

Population it's outside of Israel, but it is kind of connected in territory.

The Romans sort of treated the whole area is the same.

This is sort of the area of what would have been called the 10 towns or decapolis.

For those of you who have a fixation on ancient geography, which is probably just me, I'm sorry I don't know why I get bogged down in the maps sometimes, but I think it's interesting they've actually left Israel so they're outside of Israel.

And when they get there, these two men.

Who are possessed by demons?

Meet him.

They're so violent, no one could pass by that way it says 1st 29.

They cried out, saying, what business do we have with each other son of God?

Have you come here to torment us before the time?