Worshipping the Son of God

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  Worshipping the Son of God

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  I'm thankful for the series that I get to finish off...Enjoying Jesus Christ. I guess it's self-serving because I was the one that picked it and then said, hey elders, how about we do this? So it's nice to get to preach it myself, and I'm thankful for each brother, some of the elders and Ronald and Kurt.  They're doing a wonderful job of helping us to see through their eyes what they enjoy about Jesus Christ. Uh, what's been on my heart for a few weeks to preach is Matthew 14:22-33.  And it's a well-known story from the life of Christ that probably will come as no surprise to many as in the familiarity with it. But I chose it maybe for a different reason than the obvious, maybe which you've heard preached before and not actually wrong. You know, the faith it takes, you know, to follow Christ, to walk on water and come to him. But I chose it for a different reason, because that passage gets to the heart of what enjoying Jesus is about, both when he walked the earth, and now for us as believers. If I asked you the question, how do you enjoy Jesus...at the heart of it...what is enjoying Jesus about? And you might need a little bit of time to think about that. I know there's a subjective element to that what you enjoy about Jesus in particular. But when you say, uh, beyond my own subjective desire of what I love about Jesus, what I enjoy about Jesus, if you had to answer that question in front of a group of believers, would you be able to put your finger on exactly what enjoying Jesus is about? Well, it's here in our passage. The heart of enjoying Jesus is about worship. To summarize, our enjoyment of Christ is because we worship Christ.  As when we are enjoying him to the most for who he is and what he's done...we are enjoying him to the most. For everything he has done, for all of who he is and all his magnificence and all of his wonder. Enjoying Jesus is about worshiping him, and at the heart of our worship are the affections. He's designed us that way. We love him. Why? Because he first loved us. And we rejoice in him, why? Because he promised in John 15:11 that my joy will be where?...in you, and your joy will be what?...to the full. See, our worship is nothing less than our affections of love and joy. But all those things come because we're recipients of his grace, of what he has done for us. So to truly enjoy him, we must worship him then for who he is, the Son of God. And we see that in our text today. So if you're not there, I hope you made it by now...Matthew 14:22-33. Follow along with me as I read.
  "Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other side while he sent the crowds away. After he had sent the crowds away, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray, and when it was evening he was there alone. But the boat was already a long distance from the land, battered by the waves, for the wind was contrary. And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. When the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified and said, it is a ghost. And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, take courage, it is I. Do not be afraid. Peter said to him, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water. And he said, come. And Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water, and came toward Jesus. But seeing the wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink. He cried out, Lord, save me! Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and took hold of him and said to him, you of little faith, why did you doubt? When they got into the boat, the wind stopped, and those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, you are certainly God's Son."
  Open our eyes this morning, father, we pray to see the wonderful things about your Son in your Word.
  Remember that last verse today throughout this sermon? Because if we're going to enjoy Jesus, it's because we understand what it is to worship him. And if we understand what it is to worship him, we say, like those disciples, he is certainly God's Son. It's identifying him correctly. To worship him as He deserves, we must see Him as He truly is as these disciples saw him. And in the day of misinformation that we live in about Jesus. I can never take for granted that in a room this large, with this amount of people, that you are seeing Jesus for exactly who he is. Sadly, stats, surveys that I read...one from two years ago done by a trusted source interviewing those who claim to be evangelicals. Less than half of them polled believed that Jesus was sinless. So what good does a sinful Savior do you? I'll tell you one thing he can't do. He can't be the sacrifice for you because he's the same as you. But isn't that what we really want to sell? A Jesus that's just like us, that gets us, rather than one that's entirely different from us...absolutely sinless. Or a different survey two years back that just said Jesus was a great moral teacher and he was a wonderful, ethical man, but he wasn't God. 50% of evangelical Christians surveyed said that. This time of year, the month of July, um, I get inspired to read about the history of our country. And so my wife's a fan of, um, books about our presidents, and I buy her the biographies like David McCullough's John Adams and, uh, 1776 and Chernow's George Washington and um, because I have to read theology the rest of the year I never get around to those books. But this time of year I get inspired. July 1st comes and I pick one up and I read 20 pages, and then it's the end of July and I'm over it. But the beginning of all those books are the same George Washington or John Adams. The preface and the endorsements all say this is this is the premier book on this person. And if McCullough writes it, they're right. Um, this is the true George Washington. You know, all other biographies about him throw away. So on and so forth. Or I remember my feed on my phone a couple of weeks ago, something about Robert F Kennedy came up. Who was the real Robert F Kennedy? Can we really you know? Was he who we thought he was. And that was all the while that this was a brewing, this passage in my mind. But it made me think. We probably get everybody wrong. We do. There's no infallible source of information for my life or yours, or anybody in history, except for one... the inerrant and authoritative and infallible Word of God. And so you could get George Washington completely wrong. Whether or not he chopped the cherry tree down or his teeth were wood or ivory will make no difference in your eternity. You could be the expert on every famous leader in history, and you can know their life inside and out. Or you could be ignorant to the nth degree about the most important men and women of history and your eternal destiny would not change what?...one bit. But if you get all of them right and Jesus wrong, where are you left? Where are you left?...perishing. Perishing without knowing the real Christ. That's what's at stake with seeing Jesus for who he is. So you can worship him as he deserves. So you could confess, as those disciples did in that boat...certainly you are the Son of God. Does that give us reason to give attention to the person of Christ?...absolutely. Not saying you shouldn't pick up the biographies. I will try again next year. Maybe I'll start mid June. But to get Christ right or wrong is everything to me. And as it should be to all of us here today.
  So let's look at him. First, let's see him as the Son of God, King of the earth...in the first two verses there that we read verses 22 and 23. We want to see him as if they're going to buy the end. That last verse, confess him that you are certainly God's son. They hadn't done this yet in the two years that they had followed him.  The Father had said it about the Son at his baptism. The demons that he was casting out said it about him. But the disciples had never identified him, yet, at least with certainty. So what changed here that opened their eyes to see him as he was? First, he's king of the earth, and we see this in the chaotic and frenzied scene that we are parachuted into with that word immediately. If you remember when we when we went through the book of Mark, how often Mark moved the action by the word immediately. And Matthew doesn't do it the same, but he's wanting to show that there was something happening in this moment in the life of Jesus, that, uh, urgency was important. And what was it? Well, he urgently and immediately says to his disciples to get into the boat, they're on the northeast side of the Sea of Galilee, and he wants them to go ahead to the other side, somewhere on the northwest shore. And he's urging them to get in there while he's also quickly sending the crowds away. Well, what's the context here? Let's paint the scene. Chapter 14 begins with sadness, a flashback to John the Baptist, the greatest man among men Jesus says to be born has been beheaded. And Jesus, when he hears about it later, it says he was withdrawing to a secluded place in Matthew 14:13. He needed time to process this because he was like us in his humanity, loved John the Baptist, the greatest of men. And yet, as he's trying to seek seclusion, the crowds find him. And they're ready to be captive to his teaching and what he's doing. And so he's teaching them, and he's also feeling compassion and says they're going to be hungry as we send him away now. So let's feed them. And so chapter 14 is the famous miracle recorded in all four gospels of the feeding of the 5000 men. But you multiply that out by women and children, and it could be upwards...at least double that number 10,000. Some would suggest, if there is a few kids, a gaggle around, some of the people that came, like the Ashoffs....seven of us rolling deep. You could have 20,000, who knows?...massive crowd. And, um, they want healed. They want fed. And so he performs this famous feeding, and he does it and they're so satisfied. Verse 20, they're so excited that they, um, they think they have this long awaited king, especially for the oppressed and the outcast of Israel's people under the Roman rule. They've never seen a king like this. They barely could remember the good old days that they've been told about and read about from the Old Testament of the days of David and the days of Saul. But they've never seen anything like it since then. If you turn over to John 6, we get an added detail that makes the urgency and the immediacy of the action of Jesus in this scene so important. It's after feeding them when they have been satisfied and they've seen Jesus take the food and right before their eyes become Sheetz and just food everywhere you look. MTO order your sandwich. Boom! It comes out. I'm a big fan of Sheetz, if you can tell. John 6:13 they gathered up and filled 12 baskets with fragments and five barley loaves which were left over. There's more than they could use and eat. And it says, verse 14, therefore when the people these crowds saw this sign, they said, this is truly the Prophet capital P, who is to come into the world. That promise goes all the way back to the time of Moses, a greater prophet than him. Maybe this is in their mind, uh, going back to manna coming from heaven. Could be that. Or we think of the prophet Elijah and the widow and providing oil when she needed it, when everything was going, whatever it might have been that could have triggered in their mind. This is the one we're waiting for. But look at verse 15 in John 6. Or listen, if you don't have your Bible open, Jesus, perceiving that they, the crowds, were intending to come and take him by force to make him king. Talk about a landslide election. No speech is needed, right?...no democratic process here. He's it. Imagine they're going to pick him up two years into his ministry, though, back in Matthew 14, we see he has been rejected by the Jewish leadership. Because back in Matthew 12, they accused him of having a demon. He's done with them. They're seeing his works, the leaders of the day in Israel, and they're accusing him of being led by Beelzebub himself. So he's moved on from them.  In Matthew 13, the parables describe this. But they also describe a fickle crowd who's really just there, like that second soil to immediately pop up and look good. But then the sun scorches it and it's done. He's talking about what's about to happen in Matthew 14 with these crowds. They immediately receive him with joy. Why? Because he's giving them everything they want on earth and entirely missing the point in heaven. They are thinking his kingdom is just of this world. So they intend to make him king by force. And John 6:15 says that's when he withdraws to the mountain by himself. So back to our text in Matthew 14:22. Now you can see why immediately he made the disciples get into the boat. He didn't even because they weren't to go to far away. When you put together the two other accounts in John and in Mark, this was just probably a spot in the northeast side. They were going to go to the northwest side. That maybe would have been a mile and a half, just kind of sticking by the shoreline, they’re not going to plunge out into the deep to go there. Truthfully, if it maybe weren't for all these crowds there, he would have just told them to walk it. But there was their fishing boat. And so they get in the fishing boat. And then he also just as quickly sends these crowds away because he is trying to not let it get out in front of him, let the momentum pick up too quickly where he becomes king only down here. Because he knows the will of the Father and what he's here to do...to be the Savior of the world. But they don't get it. The crowds want him king now, and he could see how his disciples could easily be swayed by that populism, just like we can today. A crowd builds what?...a crowd. And if we are only seeing with eyes not of faith and say, that must be a big movement over there. That must be the real thing. Why? Because a bunch of people are having their needs met, their felt needs, the things they like. It just gets you excited. And that's what's happening with Jesus here. They're seeing him as a king and even a king of earth, but they're not seeing him as the Son of God. But he sees this tide of populist appeal, senses the danger not just for his disciples, but even for himself. So he tells them to get out of here. Go. I'll catch up later. It wasn't his time to be king. He's not looking for earthly power. If he just wanted earthly power He could have gotten to it really quickly. Couldn't he have? Back in Matthew 4, he was already offered it. If you flip back to Matthew 4:9-10. Satan had come to tempt him. And Satan said to Jesus, all these things I will give you. He showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and says, all these things, all the kingdoms of the world, and their glory I will give to you, if you will fall down and worship me. Satan already offered it a year and a half earlier. Jesus didn't take the bait. Jesus said to him, go, Satan! For it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only. Then the devil left him. Luke 4:13 adds, Satan withdrew until a more opportune time. When was that opportune time?...right now. He didn't have to bait it the same way. He didn't have to show up, but he could put it in the minds and hearts of these people. Here's the ticket to the top. This guy, thousands walking into Jerusalem saying, here's our new King...mob rule. We're going to put him into power. See you Herod. The long awaited king. He could feed us. Surely he could heal us. Who's going to stop us? And so he sees all this coming. But we know just a chapter later in Matthew 16, His call to discipleship doesn't include a call to you becoming greater. It's you becoming less. It's not you taking up the crown, it's you taking up the cross. Matthew 16:24 Jesus said to his disciples, if anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Jesus was practicing what he preached in Matthew 14. Listen to this verse. Matthew 16:26, for what would it profit a man, even the Son of Man, even the Son of God, if he gained the whole world and forfeits his soul? You think that was just for the disciples? You think he didn't recognize that for himself? What would it have profited, the Son of God, to gain that whole world in that moment? But what would have been lost?...salvation. You and I, no hope if he takes the bait. So he sends them away. A crucial test of his authority and humility. Protecting himself and his disciples from the sway of the crowds. And what it shows right here about him as being king of earth is that he was still the Son of God all this time. He wasn't just able to be recognized with eyes that his disciples or crowds could see with. He saw something that none of them could see. He saw the trap. He saw what Satan was trying to do, what the crowds wanted, and he sent it away. His popularity, though with the Jewish rulers....they were trying to kill him already. But the intensity and the expectancy with him was nearing an out of control moment. And yet he is in complete control right here, isn't he? I mean, he had the authority. Think of this as the Son of God. Authority He taught with that nobody else had, to tell those disciples who have been kind of living hand to mouth at this point. Right? The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. We've given up everything to follow you. And now they're seeing, Hey, all these thousands of people. It's now. And he says no, get in the boat. And do they resist? They don't. Why? Because of his authority. They were willing to do what he said. And the crowds could have stayed there and said, no, we're not going to go away. But they listened. He had an authority unlike anybody else. He's in control of all things. It wasn't flying out of control. He wasn't tempted just because he saw it right there in front of him in that moment to think, I've got the votes because it wasn't going to be by the people giving him the power. He already had it. By his what?...by His title. By his person...He was the Son of God. He was sent from God. He knew exactly who he was....the greater prophet promised in the Old Testament, the longed for Messiah, the Holy One of God to lead his people. But he understood about these crowds. They only wanted him for the food. They liked him for the fame. I mean, if you look back to John 6, when they came back the next morning to that same spot, they showed up, they wanted breakfast. And Jesus sees them and he says to them, truly, truly, I say to you, you seek me not because you saw signs, because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Don't work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him the father God has set his seal. What shall we do?...they said, so that we may work the works of God. They don't get it, he says. Here's the work. John 6:29 that you believe in him whom he has sent. He's not calling them to work. He's calling them to faith. But see, they are so into only what they can see with their eyes, what they could taste, what they could hold on to. And it's not much different today, is it? When churches get into this idea of figure out what the people want and give it to them and they'll show up. You figure out what the evangelical voters want and promise them that, and they'll vote, right? The felt needs, the physical needs, the things down here...Jesus sees right through it. Do you? Learn from his example. What does he do at this time? Is he sucked into it? No. He steps away from it. He sends them away. Verse 23, after he had sent the crowds away, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. Why does he do that? Because he's not going to let anything get in between him and communion with his Father. He knows he needs it. I mean, we just have to get the idea out of our heads that Jesus has the Son of God cheat code, that he's never really tempted by anything. I mean, he's God. So he just kind of cruises through life with no problems and can't understand anything of what we face. No, he was tempted in all ways like us, but never gave in and tempted in the really nefarious ways, like wanting to have more than we should get at that moment. Like seeing that success in victory in higher life that some prosperity preachers promise in reaching for it. And he says, I don't want any of that. I just want to be with my father. That's a lesson for us not to be fooled by following a crowd...in the church and in Christianity. If you're not first willing to follow him individually, if you don't seek devotion and intimacy and relationship with God through Christ, you could just be in this room riding the wave. I don't know what wave it is, to be honest. I mean, if you're in here, like, yeah, I'm part of this thing. Look around. What do I have to offer you other than Christ? Nothing. Advice on how to get a good sandwich...coffee. That's it. But if I or anybody else preaching here or making disciples here can offer you Christ, you're offered everything. Everything, but the world's going to give you everything else. And sometimes the church apes the world. So ask yourself, do you like Christ understand what you're seeing going on around you, not just seeing him as king down here with the power, with the authority that could start a kingdom down here. But like he tells Pilate, right at his hour of death, John 18:36. My kingdom is not of this world. So back to our text. Where was the kingdom? It was up on the mountain praying, and it was in seed form, down on a boat with about a couple guys that are shivering and about to be really scared. 
  So let's move with the action from 22 and 23 about this King of Earth now to the King of Heaven. 24 to 26 the action moves by moving us to look at the boat. The first two verses, it ends. I mean, it starts a little bit chaotic with the crowds going away, but then it gets peaceful and Jesus is up there and he's praying to the Father. But what's going to be happening down on the sea is anything but peaceful. Verse 24 the boat was already a long distance from the land, battered by the waves, for the wind was contrary. And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. I'm reminded of my wife's favorite line down here when we moved to the south. Growing up in LA, she didn't see much rain, I guess. Just call it what it is...rain...especially a thunderstorm. So one of her favorite things to do for the last however many years we've been here is, you know, whatever that time is of the day in the summer, sky gets a little bit dark. She turns to me and says, it looks like a storm's a brewing. She gets a kick out of it every time. And that's this section. Looks like a storm's a storm's brewing. There's a few details here that kind of pull us into the action. The boat's a long distance, and that's translated from a word stadia, which was about eight, 6 to 800ft in that time. John 6:19 breaks it down into detail that helps us to know just how far out were they? Well, it says the sea began to be stirred up in John 6:18. A strong wind was blowing, and then when they had rowed about 3 or 4 miles. So they're rowing, but they end up rather than just hugging that shoreline of the Sea of Galilee. If you could picture it, it was it was shaped. It's shaped kind of like a harp. That's how it got its Old Testament name, Kinneret. Kinnor is the word for harp in Hebrew. So Kinneret sea or the Sea of Galilee is this harp shape, and you imagine that widest part of the harp at the top. Sea of Galilee is about 13 miles from north to south, and eight miles from east to west at its widest point. But they're may be trying to get across at that 3 to 4 mile distance. They couldn't stay along the shore because this wind has come from the Mediterranean blowing from west to east, and it's just pushing them back. So they've been pushed out 3 or 4 miles and then it says, they've been battered by the waves. And that's a word battered, that's used elsewhere in the New Testament for a demon tormenting someone. So it's almost like in this action that these waves were coming to life personally attacking this boat. And if you've ever been in a similar situation on the high seas, or one time when I was a camp counselor and took out one of those little one person, I don't even know what you would call it.  It had a little bit of a sail.  I was not raised on the sea. And I was out there one afternoon enjoying time with the Lord, of course. And then the wind starts blowing and there goes me, trying to get back using the sails. So I take it down and just have to paddle. But those waves, those little baby waves were enough to stop me. And I'll admit I panicked. I just thought, you know, here I am in the middle of this...pond. I'm never going to get back to shore, you know. Now this is much different. So they they're out and in verse 24, they're being battered. And then it says the wind was contrary, meaning it was blowing directly against them trying to go west. And all the while we get a piece of information about what time it is. It's the fourth watch of the night. So from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. in the ancient Near East, time was the night watch and it was divided into four sections. The first watch would be 6 to 9, second watch 9 to 12, third 12 to 3, fourth watch 3 to 6. So if Jesus dismissed the disciples when it was evening, as the accounts tell us, at least they've been out there 4 to 5 hours at this point, straining at the oars, tired, beat down, and just trying to go relative short distance. That's a bad spot. They're wet, tired, scared. And unlike the earlier story where Jesus was at least asleep in the boat, he's nowhere to be seen. It's pitch black. Put yourself in their sandals. I mean, there was mythology in this time about the dangers of the sea. The one occasion I had of feeling stranded at sea was one thing. But this summer at the ocean, one of the nights, got kind of stormy. And it had nothing to do with this. But I was just curious. Even after the big part of the storm went away, um, I had a nephew who refused to sleep and kept me up. So I would go outside and look around, and it was maybe midnight or so, and it was dark, and that ocean was scary. When there was a storm that had just passed. You couldn't have paid me any amount of money in that darkness to walk out even five feet. The crashing of the waves and it's just a brooding, menacing sea. And you think of these guys. They're not wimps. I mean, this is what they do for a living, but it says they're terrified and they're wet and they don't know what to do. And then look at verse 25 in that fourth watch he comes to them. In Mark 6:48 it says that Jesus saw them straining at the oars, literally being harassed in their rowing. And it starts making you ask questions. How does he see them in the pitch black? How does he see them in the storm? He's up on the mountain. They're 3 to 4 miles out. How does he know where to go? You know, the believability about the Bible is often in what it keeps back and explains away. Why I love these stories is because they don't tell us. We just know he's God, so he sees them right in the midst of his praying. He just knows. He knows what's going on with them and he's going to get out to them. And this is where we see he's not just Earth's king, he's heaven's king. He's in control of everything here. They're in control of nothing here. Look at the details of what the disciples are going through in verse 26. When the disciples saw him walking on the sea. At first it says, they're terrified, and that's a word for being agitated, stirred up on the inside. And then they say it is a ghost. All 12 of them come to that conclusion at the same time. It tells you what was believed about the sea at that point when I said, in that time it wasn't just these guys that believed it. If you read other mythologies around other false religions, at the time, the sea was home to the undead. And so they, though having been around Jesus and seen his miracles and seen his power, they've never seen nor heard of a person walking on the water. So they come to the only conclusion they could, which is...that's a ghost. Rather than get on their knees and pray and say, we've been in this situation before, guys, maybe we should. We know Jesus is somewhere around here. We should be praying. No, they start screaming. Middle school boys screaming in a pillow fight or watching a scary movie or something. Just terrified. Crying out in fear. Grown men, sea worn men scared out of their wits. And all coming to the conclusion that it's a ghost. Why the madness? Why the hysterical responses? Well, they've been in a lot of storms before, but now they're in a storm, and now there's a ghost coming at them. What would you do?...be just as scared. And yet, you think about this, uh, situation being tossed in the sea and how that could mess with one's discernment. Maybe you haven't had a situation like this, but you've ever been on an airplane late at night in the dark and there's turbulence. Remember, they've been out here for a few hours. Uh, how stressed out, whacked out, lack of discernment do you have if you were in some turbulence on an airplane for ten minutes, you freak out. You're clutching the sides of the chair. You're thinking all is going down...five minutes, one minute. We're talking hours of this. You think it might have messed with their ability to understand and just even have level headed thinking right now? Gripped by fear and losing faith, Jesus Christ appears to them an unholy ghost. Fear blurred faith's vision, turning their Savior into a spirit. I mean, that's what happened. And it makes us think about our own situation that, when we start to despair like these disciples, how inaccurate our view of God can become. C.H. Spurgeon wrote, "The nearer Jesus was to them, the greater was their fear, Lack of discernment blinds the soul to its richest consolations. We should plead for the Lord to be near us, so we may know him more." And rather they're going in the opposite direction. The last thing they want is that perceived spirit, because of their state of despair, to get any closer to the boat. And I think it teaches us something about our own situation of when we are going through something traumatic like this, something that would produce a sense of despair, despondency, distress. You're probably not your own best source of judgment, are you? No matter how strong in the faith you think you are. Why you need the body of Christ around you is because you're just not like these disciples going to be able....you might be reading the situation rightly, as in it's bad. They're not wrong about being afraid of the storm itself, but they make the jump to then thinking they see something that's not there that they have no reason to believe should be there. And in a takeaway of a spiritual lesson from a physical one here to take the source of their consolation, as Spurgeon says, and then to turn it into their worst fears. They can't even recognize their Savior. Have you ever been there? Going through despair. Shaken up by some circumstance in your life. How accurate were you in really even understanding your situation, let alone where God was in it? Makes me think of, Psalm 77. It's a psalm about somebody crying out to God in the midst of their distress. It says, my voice rises to God and I will cry aloud. My voice rises to God, and he will hear me. In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord. In the night my hand was stretched out without weariness. My soul refused to be comforted. But listen for the similarity to what this writer is saying, and where the disciples were. When I remember God, then I am disturbed, as even in the thought of God and this psalmist's low point, thinking of God is a disturbing thought. Why is that? Because he says, verse 7, will the Lord reject forever? Will he never be favorable again? Do you see what he's starting to question here? He's starting to question the goodness of God in his despair.  Has His lovingkindness ceased forever?  Has His promises come to an end forever? Has God forgotten to be gracious, or has he, in anger, withdrawn his compassion? Psalm 77:10, then I said, it is my grief that the right hand of the Most High has changed. Wow. That could put you in a bad situation, can't it? When you were overwhelmed with life's troubles and the time you were close to God seems years ago...long ago. That song in the night is gone. Your spirit ponders, do I even know God anymore? Because I surely can't understand him. How does he right himself? Verse 11, I shall remember the deeds of the Lord. Surely I remember your wonders of old. Would that have helped the disciples in that situation? To just one of them say, hey guys, we're freaking out! But do you remember the last time we were on a boat in the storm?...what Jesus did for us. He just woke up and said, be quiet. And it was quiet. And when we were astonished. Do you guys remember that? Do you remember what he just did earlier today when he took the loaves and the fish and multiplied them and fed thousands of people? None of them were going there. They were letting their circumstances overwhelm them. And so they were forgetting this God. But the psalmist doesn't. He says, I shall remember the deeds of the Lord. I will remember your wonders of old. I will meditate on all your work and muse on all your deeds. And then he rights himself...first character quality of God that he gets to in verse 13. Your way, O God, is holy, different. Unlike me, in all the instability that I go through, you are not like me. And then he says, what god is great, like our God. Forgetting the greatness of God...Jesus, the King of earth and King of heaven in that moment, completely forgotten by these disciples. You are the God who works wonders. You have made your strength known among the peoples. You have by your power redeemed your people. You read on in Psalm 77 and he starts talking about something he doesn't even know is going to happen hundreds of years forward. Listen to the end of Psalm 77. The waters saw you, O God. The waters saw you. They were in anguish. The deeps also trembled. The clouds poured out water. The skies gave forth a sound. Your arrows flashed here and there. The sound of your thunder was in the whirlwind. The lightnings lit up the world. The earth trembled and shook. Your way was in the sea. And your paths in the mighty waters. And your footprints yet are not known. It's a prophetic look forward to this moment where Christ walks on these waters. But maybe they didn't remember Psalm 77, that his way can be in the sea because He's God, and he could plant his feet on the water and walk across it because he's God. Or like in Job 9, who at the end of that book says, I had heard of you with my ears, but now I see you through eyes of faith. But he does say, Job in his distress...were he to pass me by, I would not see him. Were he to move past me, I would not perceive him, even though he could say who alone stretches out the heavens and treads upon the waves of the sea. Verse 8. You see, it's in us to know God, and then to completely miss him because of our human condition. To be able to say true things about him and then not recognize them, that he's right there with us the whole time. John Piper says of how despair can fool our eyes of faith. He said, "despair is relentless in the certainties of pessimism. It's a good line. Despair is relentless in the certainties of pessimism. Our fearful certainties should not be our sureties. So it will always be with deceptions of darkness. Let us know, while we have the light, to cultivate a healthy distrust of the certainties of our despair. What is he trying to say there to us? That while you are on the land and the sun is out, shore up in your heart...trusting God, knowing who he is and what he's done for you. So that when the darkness falls and the storm comes, you will not be tricked. You won't be fooled. You won't think that the one who comes to save you is coming to scare you like these disciples did. Maybe not understanding in the full picture of who Jesus was. That the Savior in the storm was also the one who sent it. You know, because again, we just kind of like a half picture of God, don't we? We just get sold this idea that if you come to Christ, never a storm again. Well, he will deliver you from the storms, but he also is the creator of them. And often he'll create the storm to come to you, to rescue you on it, to stretch your faith, to teach you in a way that prosperity can't and only adversity can. Never more than you can handle, beloved. But in this case, certainly right up to the point that you could be screaming in terror. Well, if you want to know how the story ends, you have to come back next week. But this is what it is to enjoy Jesus, to be able to worship him is to worship him in faith when it's dark, when we're afraid, remembering that as the King of heaven, he's not off on a mountain unaware. William Cooper was an Anglican hymn writer in the 1700s, and one of the most widely read English poets of his day...lived from 1731 to 1800. He grew up in a Christian home, but it was a sad home. He was one of seven children. Five of his siblings died before the age of two. I mean, that's how life was then. And, uh, the only sibling that lived...a younger brother, five years younger. His mother died a few days after giving birth to. So by six years old, no mother. Dad sends him away to school and has no relationship with him essentially the rest of his life. So Cooper struggled with despair his entire life. After a failed attempt at suicide at age 32, he is put in a mental asylum and he comes to Christ after hearing the gospel from a visiting doctor and reading of Christ in the Gospels, raising Lazarus from the dead. And for the first time seeing the compassion of Christ, understanding who Jesus really was, and then turning to Romans 3:21 and understanding that his salvation was secure. Not of good works of his own, but because of the sacrificial life and death of Jesus. We would like the story to end there and it just be one happy tale. But he struggled with despair and depression the rest of his life. Fortunately for him, he became good friends and a disciple of the great John Newton, writer of Amazing Grace. And they were hymn writers together, and in the many times after he became Newton's friend, he had to come back again and again, struggling through depression. Cooper's most well-known, maybe most well-known work was a poem he wrote called, Light Shining Out of Darkness, but it was adapted into a hymn called God Moves in a Mysterious Way. And I want you to enjoy more of Jesus this morning as I read this to you to close.
  He wrote, "God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm. Deep and unfathomable minds of never failing skill, he treasures up his bright designs and works His sovereign will. Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take the clouds ye so much dread are big with mercy. And shall break in blessings on your head. Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his grace Behind a frowning providence he hides a smiling face. His purpose will ripen fast, unfolding every hour. The bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower. Blind unbelief is sure to err and scan his work in vain. God is his own interpreter, and he will make it plain.
  Friend, if that doesn't resonate with you...do you know Christ? Can you understand that whatever you might feel has been a frowning countenance of God towards you, as if he has been against you? It's not that way with God. He has sent his Son to die on the cross, so that you could see beyond the circumstances of your life, as hard as they might have been right up to this very moment, and this might be the last time you were going to give church a try.  The last time you were going to give God a shot today.  And you are wondering what he could do to change your mind. He certainly couldn't in a sermon by me, but he can by the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, His Son. He could change you right now if you look to Christ and not look to the Christ of your own imaginations and expectations, but look to the Christ of Scripture. Look to the one who is well acquainted with grief, who bore your sins on the cross so that you could be forgiven. Look to him with eyes of faith and trust in him as the Son of God, King of earth, King of heaven, sent to save sinners like you and me. Let's pray.

  Father, we thank you for your grace in Jesus Christ today. We thank you that as your children, what Cooper wrote is true of us that we may suspect in our circumstances and situation, even right now, that there's some something we've done to make you disappointed with us. But if we could only see your smiling face, the one that loves us and you proved it by sending your Son for us, and to hold on to that singular thread of faith this morning is all we need. That you would minister Christ to us this morning through your word and by your Spirit's illumination of this word. We ask in your name, Christ. Amen.