Good morning!
If you were to open up to Matthew. Chapter 8.
We're going to take a look at just a few passages that 2 of the main ones are going to be in.
Matthew.
The boys should be passing out some flyer or a sheet of paper that you can kind of follow along with.
Make some notes if you want. So our idea today is or my thesis is what we see matters.
But how we see matters even more, and I think you'll understand what I mean as we get into this.
So we live in a world, and we're seeing things all the time.
And.
If we don't, if we don't look if we don't look through things from the right perspective, then what we see can be very confusing, and it can be even troubling.
We can get ourselves into a lot of danger, sometimes depending on the circumstances.
If if we don't understand what we're looking at, and I give you a personal story, something I was thinking about as I was preparing for this when I was 14, and in Alaska, when you're 14, you can get your learners permit and so I was driving, and I was terrible and whenever the
first time I started to driving I was like straddling the white line like all the way over, like my dad's like you have to get over.
You have to be closer to the middle. I was off.
I've learned since, but we were at a stop sign at 1 point, and I look to the left, and there was a car coming, and I saw that their blinker was on, and so I was getting ready to go, and my dad's like stop.
Stop. So I stopped, and there was the road. That was that where I was, and then there was a driveway like next to the road, and so they were signaling to turn into the driveway.
So if I would have gone I would have gotten into an accident.
So I was looking, and I thought I understood what it was that they were trying to do, and I didn't.
I was still learning. I wasn't monitoring their speed.
I wasn't checking that they were coming in too fast to make this turn.
I didn't know. I just took it at face value.
They're coming! They're turning. I'm good to go.
But I wasn't, and so that was part of a learning process for me.
That you can't just look and see. Okay, they're turning like you have to have more of an understanding right?
So I saw something, but I didn't see it with full understanding, and so that's something that we're going to kind of be talking about.
That's a theme of what we're talking about.
What we see matters, but how we see it matters more so.
Matthew. Chapter 8. We're going to be starting in verse 23, a.
At this point Jesus is. He's given his Sermon on the Mount.
He started calling His disciples, he started performing wonderful miracles, things that people just can't believe.
He's preaching with a power that nobody had ever seen before, and we get to this point where he has great multipleitudes following him, and he's trying to get with his disciples from one side of the sea to the other, and he says He gives his he gives a command to depart to the other
side and in verse 23, it says, now, when they got into a boat, his disciples followed him, and suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves, but he was asleep.
Then his disciples came to him and woke him, saying, Lord, save us!
We are perishing. But he said to them, Why are you fearful?
Oh, you of little faith! And then he arose and rebuked the winds in the sea, and there was a great calm.
So the men marveled, saying, Who can this be that even the winds and the seas obey him?
Sometimes I think that we rush a little bit too quickly through the Scriptures.
Sometimes we, we need to pause, and we need to to take them on, to really understand the moment the disciples are in a boat and Jesus is sleeping, and they're heading.
They're doing what he said for them to do, and they're going to the other side of the sea.
And this great storm arises, and they're afraid.
And they looked to Jesus. They look to Jesus, and they don't understand how he can be asleep at such a critical moment.
They're confused, and they're afraid they're just afraid.
And they're they're looking through eyes. These are. These are young men.
They don't know any better, and they're they are looking at the world, and they're taking it at face value.
They're looking at and saying, This is a terrible storm.
These are fishermen. They know all about storms, they they recognize that boats get sunk all the time.
People lose their lives like this is they? They understand, in a sense, what they're up against here, and they're used to looking through this sort of this experiential viewpoint that they that they've had.
And they recognize that this is a terrible thing, and they just cannot believe that the Lord would sleep through this.
They just don't understand it, and they're afraid.
And they should be afraid, or at least they think that they should be afraid.
And so it's confusing. When the Lord wakes up and says, Why are you fearful?
We are fearful because we know what normally happens in these kinds of situations. What are you talking about?
Why are we feeling for fearful? Our boats gonna sink, we're gonna die, and everything that you're here for is going to be lost.
But they don't understand, they don't. They don't give it. And we can understand that there's times in our own lives where things happen, and we freak out.
We're looking through eyes that we're accustomed to seeing through.
And and the Lord is trying to get our hearts and say, Look, you don't have to be afraid like this.
Why are you afraid? I was thinking, whenever I was reading earlier in Exodus, few weeks back, I always think it's so funny when they get to the Red Sea and their backs are to the sea, and Fair was bearing down on them.
And God says like, Come on, what? What's the problem?
Just go through the sea and it's like, what what are you talking about?
We can't just walk through the sea, but he wanted them to understand.
I didn't just bring you out here to destroy you like.
There is no other way but to go through and do it like I'm here.
I got this? What! What are you afraid of?
And you get the same sort of sense here. Why are you afraid?
You think that I'm going to let the sea drown you like?
Do you not understand what is going on here you have nothing to be afraid of.
There's this great hymn it's called.
Master, the tempest is raging. It's an old hammer. May have heard.
It may have not, but one of the in the course. It says the winds and the waves shall obey thy will.
Peace be still, whether the wrath or this, of whether the wrath of the storm tas sea or struggles, or evil, whatever it be, no water can swallow the shipwreck lies the master of ocean and earth and skies.
It's not going to happen. Jesus is in the boat.
It's not going down, and he wants them to understand this.
And I think I think that clearly all things work in accordance with God's will.
But he allowed this thing to happen because he wanted them to understand it.
He wanted them to know this. He wanted them to see. Look, I'm not going to let this happen.
You don't have anything to be afraid of. And so these people who are accustomed to looking through the world in a particular point of view, see things as certain way now have to have to re-understand how to look at the world this isn't dependent on us it is dependent on him.
This ship goes down that's going to be in accordance with his will.
But it will be in accordance with his will. A. But either way we don't have anything to be afraid of.
And so he allows this thing to happen because he he's giving them.
My uncle told me one time. Life always works in reverse.
You get the test first, and then the lesson which at the time I didn't understand.
But I think I understand what he's meaning sometimes God brings us to the point where He shows us that, like we can't do it.
And then he teaches us how he's going to do it.
That makes sense. And and it's that's what happens here.
He, he gives them the tests that He knows that they're going to fail and he brings them through it.
And then later, we see that the same test is going to happen again.
And how are they going to respond? And so that's where we're going to go to.
Next is is in Matthew, 14 versus 22.
Starting in verse 22, we see the way that this happened once they're out on the sea, and they think that they're going down, and they're afraid.
And a, and they cry out, Lord, save us! And he! He responds as he responds, and they marvel at this thing.
Well in verse chapter 14, verse 22, we see a eerily similar situation.
Jesus has just fed the 5,000. He's they've already seen him come.
The sea once they've seen this thing happen, he's just fed the 5,000.
He sends the disciples over across the sea, he's dismissing everybody, and verse 22.
Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into a boat and go before him to the other side, while he sent the multitudes away, and when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up on the mountain by Himself to pray.
Now, when the evening came he was alone there, but the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary.
Now in the fourth watch of the night, Jesus went to them, walking on the sea, and when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It's a ghost, and they cried out for fear.
But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, Be of good cheer, it is I.
Do not be afraid.
And Peter answered him, and said, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.
And so he said, Come. And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to Jesus, I think we should stop here, because it's like I said it's easy to sort of rush through these things.
Peter got out of the boat and walked on. The water like that happened before he sank before he lost.
He took steps on water towards Jesus. This doesn't even make sense to me.
But we see that this thing that happened last time right? They they freaked out.
They were so afraid, and the circumstances are a little bit different this time, because Jesus isn't in the boat with them.
So he, you know. Maybe we should be afraid, but they're they're kind of hanging in there.
And Peter, like this is this is, these seeds have been planted in his heart, and he says, Lord, if this is, you, tell me to come to you, I'll do it.
I'm not afraid. And so he steps out of the boat, and he starts walking on water.
This is an incredible thing. Our Lord is the Lord of all.
There is nothing that is not subject to his will, and if it were pleasing to him for you and I'm 100% serious.
If this was, if it was pleasing for him for you to go out and walk across Lake Michigan to get to Michigan, you could do it, because that's because he is able, like not on ice, but like the water, because that he can he can do all of these things, all of it, all of this
belongs to him, all of it, and he can do whatever he wants with it.
And so Peter steps out of the boat, and he walks on the water, and he goes walking towards Jesus.
I remember hearing somebody say one time they can just see, like Peter stepping out of the boat, getting on the water, and just kind of like looking over his shoulder at the disciples.
Check this out.
So here he is. He's walking towards Jesus. And when he saw that the wind was boisterous he was afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, Lord, save me!
And immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him, and said to him, Oh, you of little faith, why did you doubt?
And when they got into the boat the wind ceased, than those who were in the boat came and worshiped him, saying, Truly you are the Son of God.
That's the third time in Matthew that I could find where somebody comes to Jesus and worship and it says, and they worshiped him.
The first one is in Matthew 8, verse 2.
The leper comes and says says that the leper fell down at his feet and worshiped him, and said, If you are willing, you can make me clean.
Jesus reached out His hand and said, I am willing, be clean.
There was the Matthew 9, the ruler of the ruler of the synagogue came to him.
His. His dog was dying, and said, You can like the ruler, fell down his feet, worshiped him, and said, You can.
You can heal my daughter, and then we have here the disciples they come to him, and they worship him, and I was thinking about this so worship seems to be when we come to Jesus, and we recognize who he is when we recognize what it is that he's able to do who he says he is and
we put him in a place that only he can occupy, and all 3 of all 3 of these situations these people turned to Jesus for something that only he can do, and they recognize.
I'm a leper. I can't do anything about it.
But but Jesus, you can do something about it, and that's in that way.
He was worshiping him. Only you can do something, only you.
The ruler of the synagogue. His daughter is dying or dead, and he turns to Jesus because he recognizes that only Jesus can save in this situation. That's it.
There's nobody else. Doctors can't do it.
There's no other profits. There's nobody else.
Nobody has the power. Only Jesus can do.
And so he worshiped Jesus by going to him, and by recognizing that authority, that power, that he has the disciples. Same thing.
Peter walked on the water. He took his eyes off of Jesus.
He started to sink, and then he prayed.
The the the shortest, but perhaps the most effective prayer in the whole Bible.
As often as somebody says, Lord, save me! Is as often as the Lord save somebody.
Every time, every time, save me, Lord! And he's there!
That's the kind of God that we have that's the kind of god we come on a week by week basis to remember, because we have nothing.
We cannot save ourselves. We are in the same condition as all these people who fall down and worship Jesus and say, Lord, we can do nothing, but you can do something and save us, and He doesn't.
It's an amazing thing.
He reaches out his hands and he catches Peter, and he pulls them up.
I don't take this as being like this severe chastisement from the Lord. You of little faith!
Why did you doubt smile? Why did you doubt? I'm here?
You were walking on the water. Why did you take your eyes off?
He wants us. He longs for us to look to Him in that kind of trust, and that kind of just simple trust and obedience.
Lord, our eyes are on you, save us! Help us to do things that only that you can do.
So the disciples get in the boat, and they worship him.
But I want to contrast these things again. At first they saw things. Matthew.
They saw things, the way that they were trained to see things.
They saw the way that things that normally go. And Jesus stood up, and he changed all that.
What? Why are you afraid? Why are you fearful? I'm here?
You don't have to be afraid. And so the second time they respond differently.
It's starting to change. They're starting to understand this.
Things are different now, things with Jesus are different now, and so they're not as afraid as they were.
I was thinking about Peter Acts, chapter 12. James has just been killed by Herod.
Persecution of the Church is running rampant. Peter's arrested. He's put in jail.
He's about to be killed. He's shackled up between all these different guards, and he's just peacefully sleeping there in prison, about to die.
This is somebody who has been walking with Jesus now for a while, and understands that it's different.
If the Lord wants me to die, he wants me to die.
And it's my time that's what happened to James.
I'm not afraid anymore. I'm not afraid. Whatever happens is going to be in accordance with his will.
And so I'm not afraid. So the angel appears.
He's in the cell with Peter. There's this great light, Peter.
Sleeps right through it. So the angel kicks him in the side.
Hey! Get up! I'm here! Let's go. He doesn't even recognize what's happening.
He thinks it's a vision. So he just sort of happily sort of following this angel.
And then he realizes it's real. He gets outside the jail, and here is a person who has now been faithfully walking with Jesus and seen what it means to trust in Him.
Not feel like he's the one who has to take control of every circumstance, or be the one who's in charge, or whatever he's just following.
Jesus, and the fear is gone. It's gone. Whatever circumstance he finds himself in, he's peacefully content. There.
That's a lesson to us, isn't it?
I'll tell you. I'll tell you an example from my own life.
Whenever we lived in Oklahoma we we're driving down the road in our.
Dodge, Saturn, and we only had 3 boys back then they were crammed in the backseat.
It's like a 1 million degrees, and we're heading down the road and the car just stops like stops.
We're driving, and it shuts off, and it's like what, while we're rolling forward, just steered into a parking lot, and we left it in a parking space.
But we were planning to move to North Carolina in like a week, and our only car that we had was dead and we didn't have any money to buy a new car, and we didn't have time to well, I didn't think that we had time to just kind of sit around right
like we needed. We needed to do something, and and in the back of my mind I thought we should.
Trust that the like trust the Lord to provide something that we I didn't know what that meant, but it was just a seed of a thought, and I thought, I don't know.
We have to do something. I've got to get a vehicle because my family needs to be able to get around.
And how are we going to get out to North Carolina?
All these thoughts started to creep in, and so I went out, and I bought a Toyota Sienna from a dealership, and whatever we got a car, and I didn't really spend very much time like praying about it, or trusting that the Lord is going to provide something or that maybe
he would. He would provide something, or that he would care to provide something.
I don't know.
I took matters into my own hands, and so we got a vehicle.
We went out to North Carolina. We were there for a few years, and we were on our way one night in that same van.
We are going to church, going to Iowanas, and we got into a car accident.
Somebody slammed into the back of us. Our car was total, and it was like it was kind of like the Lord had brought us again just back to that same.
That same point, and this time he's like, Wait for me, and like I don't know, I'm not going to say that he talked to us, but Jamie and I both understood.
We need to wait to see what the Lord is going to do right, and you never want to.
It's it's it's. It's a weird thing to say to people, because we're very like actions driven.
And so, even amongst believers, when you say we really think that we need to weight on the Lord, sometimes you get a look like you're being irresponsible.
It doesn't work like that. You still have to do.
You still have to do things, but I don't know.
It was just really kind of uncomfortable to say that to people, but that's what we thought.
And and it was this long circumstance where these people at our church were going to be donating a vehicle, and then we ended up getting it in the end.
After my own attempts to. In the middle of it, kind of sabotage.
Our waiting, neither here nor there. I've probably told this story before we we waited for the Lord to provide, and he did, and it was like, I wonder how many cars we were going to have totaled before we were going to learn that we need to wait for the Lord, all the cars are His he doesn't
care he'll total them all. It doesn't matter.
He wants us to know that we can trust him right. He wants us to know that he's our father, and he wants to provide for us, and he wants to take care of us, and He loves us.
That's what my heart needed to hear. I have a hard time believing that sometimes I have a hard time believing that God really loves me.
I've really appreciated Irvis's message last week.
The unchanging, the unchangeableness of God, his his like, His love for us that is always there. It doesn't.
It doesn't matter. That's who he is.
That's what that's how he acts toward us.
It's always going to be that way. I have had such a hard time believing that, and I feel like this was a circumstance that I am serious.
I think that if we wouldn't have learned it there it would have been the next one, and then the next one or the next one like he wanted me to see this, and we haven't had any accidents since I'm just kidding.
He wanted the disciples to see this, though he wanted them to understand.
Look, you can trust me. You don't have to be afraid.
I was thinking about our third point here. What does God see?
What does God see? I was thinking about in John, chapter 6.
We can turn over there. This is one of the times where Jesus is feeding the 5,000 and.
And John, chapter 6, will start in verse one. After these things Jesus went over the sea of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberius, then a great multitude followed him, because they saw the signs which he had performed on those who were diseased, Jesus went up on the mountain and there he sat with his
disciples. Now the power. A feast of the Jews was near. Then Jesus lifted up his eyes, and seeing a great multitude coming toward him, he said to Philip, he didn't say it to all of them, he said it to Philip.
Where shall we buy bread that these may eat? But this he said to test him, because and here it is, for he himself knew what he would do he already knew what he was going to do.
He already knew the provision that he was going to provide for all these people, but he wanted Philip to learn something.
Specifically, Philip I don't know anything about Philip.
I don't know where his heart was. I don't know what, you know, but, like it was, it seemed to be specifically geared towards Philip.
Philip. But where are we going to get food for all these people?
And so Phillips says, 200 denary worth of bread is not sufficient for them to that every one of them may have a little.
So, Philip, again, this is early in the ministry.
He's trying to teach them. He's trying to show them things.
Look!
They're looking through regular sets of eyes. They're not understanding that things are different, and they see that even if we had an enormous amount of money, we could only give them a little bit a bite, not even enough.
But Jesus already knew what the provision was.
In these circumstances, where these storms arise, and these chaotic circumstances arise, isn't it comforting to know that Jesus already knows the provision he already knows?
What are you up against today? What circumstances are chaotic in your life?
Where are the winds of of turmoil blowing?
Where is it easy to take your eyes off of Jesus, and look at the waves, and look at the circumstances, and say.
This one really might get me. We could go down.
Isn't it comforting to know that Jesus already knows the provision he already knows what he's going to do?
What does he want from us? What is he asking of us?
I think he's asking that we trust him right. We look to him the same way that the leper did the same way that the the ruler of the synagogue did the same way that the disciples did.
You're the only one who can save. It's just you.
Our eyes are on you. I was thinking about some different examples of people who did it really well from the Old Testament.
Was thinking about Joseph A. Why, how? How do you think that Joseph was faithful when he was sold into slavery?
Whenever he was in slavery, and he didn't do anything wrong.
He then had the privilege of being taken even lower into prison, and even when he was there he was forgotten.
Why, how did he stay so faithful? It would have been so easy to crumble like.
What was he clinging to when the circumstances were awful?
What was he clinging to?
I think I don't know. I think it was those dreams that he had been given by God.
He was believing that what God said was true. One day these things are going to happen.
And so he was clinging to what God had revealed to him.
It didn't matter what the circumstances were right. It didn't matter that he found himself going from one place that seemed to be at the bottom, and then there was even a new bottom, and then there was even a new bottom, and like no matter how far he went down what God said was true to him, and so
he believed it, and he contended to do what he thought would be pleasing to God, and God already knew the provision that he had for Joseph.
He had told him about it. Do you think that God told him about it because he knew how bad it was going to be?
And he knew that he needed to tell him something, so that he'd have something to hold on to.
Maybe I don't know. Makes sense to me. What has God told us?
What do we know? What are we clinging to somebody else? I was thinking about?
Was Jacobed, Moses, mother, the Pharaoh says the baby boys have got to go, and a she fears God, and she saves him as long as she thinks she can, but she goes, and she puts him into the allegator, and fested nile in a little
basket, and she sets him down, and she walks away, and she goes home.
And anybody who's had a baby understands like what that means, and.
I can't imagine being in that kind of a circumstance, but her eyes were on God.
By faith. This is how she responded. It didn't matter what the Government had said to her, and she obeyed, and she she did what she needed to do with her eyes fixed on Jesus, and we all know what happened. There.
But, Jacob, that that is an amazing thing.
I was thinking about.
There was one more that I was thinking about, but I can't remember it now, but we see examples of this all the time.
These people who have their eyes fixed on Jesus and they're trusting that he is going to do what he says.
He's going to do. Sometimes. It's not even a direct promise.
Sometimes it's just clinging to his character. Sometimes we don't know what the like.
We don't have something to stand on that says that this is going to go the right way.
Sometimes we're just simply trusting that a good God who loves us is going to do what's best for us, and that's it.
There's the hilarious joke about Chick-fil-a, like, even if you go to Chick-fil-a, and you get the wrong order.
You trust you so implicitly. Trust Chick-fil-a that they know what's best for you, that they gave you the right food, even like you didn't know.
That's what you wanted, but that's what you needed.
But that's true with God. Right? We expect. We think that we know what we want we think that we know what we need, and sometimes he gives us something from left field, and we're like what?
How does this make sense? All we can cling to is his character, that he loves us, that he wants what's best for us, that he knows the beginning from the end.
He already knows what he is going to do. He already knows how he's going to provide, and so we just have nothing to cling to but his character and his goodness and his revealed mercy to us, and we trust that well, whatever the circumstances whatever ends up happening because of these circumstances He is going to be glorified in
it. I was thinking about Romans 8. The end of the end of Romans 8.
Whenever.
It says that neither life nor death.
I'm persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ, Jesus, our Lord.
I was thinking about whenever it says, neither death nor life. I was thinking why life that doesn't make any sense when we're alive.
We're not separated from God. It's not like, we're only with God when we die, and we go to Him.
He's with us now.
When we die we're not going to be separated from him.
We have the promise that we'll be with him forever.
The Angels, principalities, powers, these things on scene, that wage war against us every day.
These things cannot prevent us from experiencing the low of God.
Height, depth, things who are created, storms, literal, actual storms, like the disciples experienced circumstantial storms of our lives.
These things don't separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And that's where he's trying to get his disciples to sea. And that's what he's trying to get us to see.
Listen. You can trust me. I'm here.
What we were talking about in the Lord's Supper this morning.
I will never leave you nor forsake you.
All of these things.
All of these things he wants us to understand this. So what we see matters so back to my thesis, what we see matters, it's not like he doesn't understand the the circumstances that that we're in.
But how we see matters even more. What are we looking at?
What are we? What are we looking at when these things arise?
Are we just continuing to see things the way that we've been trained to see your?
The or the way that that we're expected to see.
Are we seeing things through the eyes of faith that understand that Lord?
Even if I lose everything, even if I die, whether I live, whatever circumstances like.
I'm with you. And so it doesn't like that's all that I'm that's all that I need, though I'm good with that.
It doesn't matter. Nothing else matters.
Why are we fearful? What are we looking at? What are we looking at?
How are we looking? I've got a few applications.
I wrote some down. I left one blank space for you.
If you wanted to make your own, choose your own adventure.
Sort of thing. Application number one. Some of us. I was thinking about this.
I hate it whenever I like. Listen to a sermon, and and it's clear that the the person who is speaking is saying, Look, everybody is terrible at this and you all need to get better, because that that doesn't seem right, because we're all at different points right.
And so some of us need to hear this for the first time, and live according to it.
Some of us. We're going to go through our first major crisis of faith, and we need to learn these sorts of things.
Some of us have already started living this way, and we need to be encouraged to continue to live this way right?
Some of us. We need to keep going. We need to be strengthened in this.
Some of us have already been living this way for a long time, and we need to learn.
We need to come alongside other people and help them through the storms and through the trials of their own lives, and some of us just need to keep doing what we're already doing.
There's some godly people here, and I'm thankful for this congregation of believers, and I'm thankful for the impact that you all have had in my own life, and I would like to encourage you just to keep doing it.
Second application. We are in the world, but we're not of the world, which means that we can't necessarily control what we see.
But we can control how we see things.
We look at the news headlines. Sometimes we look at our family lives.
We look in the mirror we look at our bank account, and we see things that we don't want to see.
And a are we interpreting these things through our own eyes, through our own framework, through our own understanding?
Are we looking at it through the lens of the Bible, through the lens of who Jesus Christ is, and what He has promised to us?
We can't control some of the things that we see, we can control, how we see them.
That's a choice.
When we see Jesus according to who he is, we worship Him.
He's pleased with that when we recognize that he is the only one to which we can call out to to be our Savior, and He loves saving His people.
Our Heavenly Father. Thank you for this day. Thank you for this opportunity.
We've had to open up your word to see from it.
Your character to see from it that you just love us.
We don't understand how we'd understand why, other than to say, it's just who you are, and we're so thankful to be your children.
Teach us, continue to teach us to trust you. It's in Jesus, name that we pray.