Matthew 8:23-27

Wind and Wave Obey Jesus

²³ Now when He got into a boat, His disciples followed Him. ²⁴ And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves. But He was asleep. ²⁵ Then His disciples came to Him and awoke Him, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!”

²⁶ But He said to them, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. ²⁷ So the men marveled, saying, “Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?”

Disciple: One who is a student, or a follower of a teacher

A couple things I notice in these verses is that Jesus was with them and they were afraid of the storm. When He had calmed it they were surprised by how He did that. They said “Who can this be?” It is as if they didn’t know Him well. The conclusion I see is that fear and not knowing God go hand in hand.

They were afraid instead of having faith.

If we make fear our teacher it teaches us to hate, worry, complain, and doubt
If we make Faith our teacher it teaches love,courage, thankfulness and trust

The storms of life come to show us what or who we are following. The purpose is not to batter us but to teach us to stand.

But to stand on what?

HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS!

Proverbs 10:25  When the storm has swept by, the wicked are gone, but the righteous stand firm forever.

Righteousness: Quality or state of being right

The only way to stand is to have righteousness. Not a rightness of our own but only the righteousness of God that is given to us through Jesus Christ. He gave it to us freely, dying on the cross for our sins, because of His great love for us. (Ephesians 2:4-5)

His Love Never Fails….. if we have accepted Christ then He has given us His righteousness.

There is no one or any thing that can take that from us.

Let us #STAND10:25  <—-on Christ the solid rock I stand all other ground is sinking sand

So what does that even mean? It means that we believe that God loves us. We have faith that He has made us right. We don’t have to listen to the words in our minds that say we are nothing and worthless.  It means that we talk to ourselves when we doubt and worry, when we feel like a less than and a mess up…we encourage ourselves to trust God. We remind ourselves that He is our righteousness. That Jesus made it so that we are ok with God the Father. He is the reason we are friends with God. That we are ok and we are on our way! We call out to God and say God fill me with understanding and help me to know that you love me and trust that He is and He will.

Starla – the unlikely youth leader – all for God’s glory!