Matt Hagee - Who Can This Be?
Turn in your Bibles to Matthew 8, beginning at the 23rd verse, as this morning we continue in this series "The God of Miracles," looking at this miracle from the gospel of Matthew, familiar to many as the calming of the seas when Jesus stands in the bough of the boat and he tells the winds and the waves to be still. Today we're going to look at Matthew 8.
This miracle is also discussed in Mark 4, and we'll use both texts in parallel, because they share with us principles of truth that apply to every person who is in this room and those of you who are joining us online this morning. Why? Because whether you want to or not, sooner or later, your life is going to go through a disruption. And in this particular account in the gospels, the disruption is called a storm. How many of you've ever been through a storm? How many of you're married? What you need to know is that if Jesus Christ lives in you, greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. And if he is in you and he is for you, then you are to described as more than a conqueror through Christ. You are not a victim of anything, but you are a victor in faith through Christ the Lord. Give him a handclap of praise.
So today we turn to Matthew 8, and we ask the question: "Who can this be"? If you found the text, say, amen. Let's read together: now when he 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 awoke him, saying, "Lord, save us! We are perishing"! 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. So the men marveled, saying, "Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey him"?
Heavenly Father, by your power and your grace divine, saturate this sanctuary with the presence of your Holy Spirit: that as we hear your living word, it comes alive in us. And as we see the storm clouds that are on the horizon for this world, we recognize that our God is the one who rides upon the wings of the storm: and that he sits upon the throne and rules in grace and truth. Now let your name be glorified and your word be preached: that shackles be shattered, and burdens be lifted, and yokes be destroyed, and mountains moved. And for all of these things, we'll give you glory and honor, in Jesus' name. Amen.
You may be seated. We're back on the Sea of Galilee. We're back at a place where the disciples are familiar with the surroundings, and how to perform, and what to do, and what's expected of them, because after all, they're professional fishermen. So we don't think too much of it when we read in Matthew 8: that when he got into a boat, they followed him. And here they are in the familiar surroundings of the lake of Galilee. Jesus is sleeping in the back of the boat. And the disciples think to themselves, I know what to do. Done this a thousand times before. Born and raised on this water. But tonight, everything that's familiar is going to become frightening.
Where do you turn when your simple routine becomes something that shocks you? Where do you go when the ordinary day turns out to be anything but? Who do you call on when you begin to wonder if what you thought was going to be great turns out to be devastating? And in the midst of devastation, you're asking yourself, "Am I going to come out of this situation alive"? I can see the disciples, as the wind starts to blow. Maybe they adjust a sail or they tighten a rope or maybe they turned the rudder, and they think to themselves, this will pass. We're familiar with this. This is not going to be a problem. Suddenly the clouds start to build up, and they hear thunder in the distance. And they see lightning on the horizon. And they think to themselves, well, hopefully that'll go away. Maybe, maybe it'll blow out of here.
And then suddenly the wind starts to pick up a little higher and the waves start to slap up against the boat, and a little bit of water starts to come over the front. And Peter looks at James and kind of raises his eyebrows. And James looks at John and says, "You see that? But we're not worried. We got this". You know, it's funny how far humanity can go with that lie, "We got this". So fragile and so held together by the hand of God, and yet, in our own vanity, we think that we independently are in control. You control nothing. He controls everything. If you think that's wrong, try to live without breathing. You don't even control your breath. It's involuntary.
That's how he created you and designed you. And yet, if it stops, you're done in a matter of seconds. The farther the disciples get out on the water, the higher the waves get, the stronger the wind gets, the worse the weather gets. And now, they're starting to wonder: how far and how long is this going to last? Suddenly they begin to ask each other, hey, you think we ought to wake up the boss? Nah, we got this. Keeping rowing. The boat starts to go up and down, and up and down. And I don't know about you, but just about the time it goes up, I'm not looking forward to it coming down. And water starts to come over the front of the bough. And there the disciples stand, doing all that they can to try and keep the vessel pointed in the direction that it's supposed to go. But they start to struggle.
And the human side of their flesh wants to know: are we going to get out of this alive? Can we survive this night? And you can hear the desperation in their voice, because when they call out to Jesus, they desperately do so. In Mark 4, they say, "Master, carest thou not"? In Matthew 8, they say, "Lord...We're perishing"! Either way, they thought it was over. You know it's in our human nature to want someone to be as upset about our situation as we are. And most of the time, we get offended when we speak to people who aren't as upset as we are. People come up and they say things like, "I have had the worst day of my life". You need to understand that's often an over exaggeration. Because a day is actually 24 hours.
And if you got to eat or sleep, it couldn't have been a completely bad day, because food and rest are good things: right? You might have had a bad hour. You might have had a bad conversation, but you didn't have a worst day of your life. Regardless, when you have the worst day of your life, and you share with someone it's the worst day of your life, the one thing you don't want them to do is go, "Well, that's great". You want their emotion to match your emotion, because misery loves, what? Company. Oh, y'all hard that one too. But here the disciples are worried, and they're concerned, and they're desperate, and they're terrified, because everything that they thought was going to go one way turns out to go an opposite direction. And when they turn to Jesus, they don't find Jesus on his knees in the back of the boat reading Psalms 91, "He shall keep them in the secret place of the Most High of the dwelling".
When they look in the back of the boat, there he is sleeping, undisturbed by everything that they think is going to destroy them. The disciples are afraid for their life, and Jesus is sawing logs. And you can almost hear the tone of offense when they speak to him. "Master, carest thou not"? Hey, we're dying up here. How often do we do the same thing? A personal storm, a professional storm, a physical storm, a financial storm rolls into our lives. We weren't aware that it was coming. But suddenly, when it arrives, we go into heavenly places and we start disrupting the celestial beings by saying, "Hey! Do you guys know about this? The doctor called and it's not a good report. My teenager came home and said they're leaving the family because they don't want to live in the faith. My spouse showed up and they want a divorce. I'm out of money. I'm out of hope. I'm out of my mind. And you guys are up there not even paying attention"!
What you need to know is that before it even showed up in your life, it had to go through God's hand. He's either sovereign or he's not. And since he is sovereign and he is all knowing, he's not going to be as disturbed by your circumstance as you are, because he doesn't wait for the headlines to find out what's the news: he knew about the news long before it got here. So no wonder the disciples find him sleeping, because he's fully God and he's fully man. The flesh side of him needed rest. The God side of him knew exactly where the disciples were, knew exactly what the disciples were going through, knew exactly when the storm started, knew exactly when the storm would end. And that's why whenever they woke up Jesus, he said, "Hey, how come you don't have any faith"?
In Mark 4, it says, "Then he arose". It says the same thing in Matthew 8. It says, "Then he arose". Say that with me. "Then he arose". He slept through the thunder and the lightning. He slept through the up and down of the waves. He slept through the howl of the wind. But when one of his children called on him, then he arose. You need to know that God is not moved by the weather on the outside. But when you call upon him, that's when he starts to move. When you see storm clouds start to form in your life, don't start whining about the weather: start talking to the master of the wind. Start talking to the God who created heaven and earth. Start speaking to the one who said, "What you bind on earth, I'll bind in heaven. And what you loose on earth, I'll loose in heaven".
When you walk into a physical storm and the doctor says, "Hey, we've got bad news," don't listen to the doctor's diagnosis as a forecast of your future. Start talking to the great physician and declare, "I will live and I shall not die, but declare the goodness of God in the land of the living". In a personal storm, you speak to the one who said, "I'll never leave you, nor will I forsake you," because "I'm the friend that sticketh closer than a brother". In a storm of sorrow, you speak to the one who is the Prince of Peace that wipes every tear from your eye, and you declare, "Weeping may endure for the night, but joy cometh in the morning".
And oftentimes, when we're in the storm, we don't call in faith: we call in fear. That's what the disciples did. Just a few chapter ago, they were up on the mountain with Jesus, and Jesus said, "When you pray, pray this way: our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name". Say it with me. "Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name". We all know it. We've all heard it. And if Jesus taught us to pray this way, that's how we should pray. But here comes the winds and the waves, and the disciples forget the whole form and the function and the purpose of prayer. They say, "Hey, get up"! And I'd be lying to you if I said there weren't times when I prayed that way too. When you talk in heavenly places in fear, you are asking heaven to accept something different than the faith that opens up the door.
Jesus said, "Have faith in God". He said, "Whatever you ask in faith believing, he'll do it". This is the one miracle in the gospel where Jesus chastises faith instead of rewards it. In every other instance that we've discussed in all of the other gospels, what we hear from Jesus is, "Your faith has healed you". "Your faith has made you whole". "Your faith has set you free". "Your faith, your faith, your faith". "Without faith, it is impossible to please God". But here, Jesus ridicules faith: he doesn't reward it. He says, "How are you so fearful? And how do you have such little faith"? And once again, before we chastise the disciples, let's look in the mirror at ourselves.
How often do we ask ourselves, "Does Jesus really care about me"? "If he knew what I was going through, would he allow it"? "How can I be in such dire circumstances and he says he loves me"? If you forget everything I say in this message, remember this: Jesus loves you more than you can ask, think or comprehend. If he didn't care about you, you wouldn't be where you are today. If he didn't care about you, your life would have ended long ago. If he didn't care about you, your family and your marriage would not be intact. If he didn't care about you, your business wouldn't be blessed. If he didn't care about you, your life wouldn't be sustained. If he didn't care about you, he wouldn't give his angels charge over you. He wouldn't number the hairs on your head. He wouldn't collect your tears in a vase. He wouldn't tell you that what you bind on earth, he'll bind in heaven, and what you loose on earth, he'll loose in heaven.
If he didn't care about you, he would not go to prepare a place for you: that where he is, there you may be also. Child of God, remember this: Jesus cares! You have to speak in faith and not fear. And you say, "Well pastor, it's hard to do that in the storm". No, I actually think it's easier. I believe that storms have a purpose. If they weren't purposeful, God wouldn't have allowed them. When the disciples see what Jesus does, the Bible says, "Then he arose... And he said to the winds and the waves, 'peace, be still'".
Now that's dramatic old English translation but really, literally in the Aramaic and the Hebrew, he basically just said, "Silence"! It's kind of like dad whenever all five of us were acting up, he'd go, "Hey"! That's what the winds and the waves did. They went, "Oh, sorry. We didn't know you were in there". "My bad". But when the disciples see it, they say, "Who can this be"? Wow! "Even the winds and the waves, they obey him". You see, I believe that storms are where your faith and your flesh and your soul all get mixed up to where you begin to depend more on God in faith than you do your flesh or your emotions. The disciples were familiar with the water. They were familiar with the boat, so their flesh said, "We got this".
Whenever their flesh was out of control, their emotions said, "Hey Jesus, don't you care"? But it's only after they saw what he could do that their flesh started to kick in, and they wanted to know, "Who is this"? I'll put it to you in this context. Let's say that this vessel represents the flesh of your life. We are body, soul and spirit. So here's the physical body. And this water represents your soul. Your soul does the whole, "Six days you should work and one day you should rest," so you've got migraine Monday, and you've got Tylenol Tuesday. You've got worry-about-it Wednesday. You've got terrible Thursday, frustrating Friday. Sad Saturday. Then you come to church. And this protein powder, it represents the Word of God. And you say, "Why does it represent the Word of God"?
Well, because if there was a label on this, I could read to you all of the essential nutrition that you need from this protein powder. I mean, there's things, b-12's in here, calcium's in here, vitamin d's in here, and vitamin c in here. There's things you can't even pronounce, thiamin, and glymin, and glucosamine, and everything else that's mean and make you mean. But when you read the Word of God, the Bible says, "It's milk for babies. It's meat for men. It's alive. It's powerful. It's sharper than a two-edged sword". There's nothing in your life that the Word of God cannot accomplish for you. It's everything you need.
So you've got all of this inside of you throughout the week, and then you come to church. Pastor preaches on Joseph. Pastor Matt preaches about miracles. And then we listen to them on the podcasts. And then we download the book on audible. And then we get SiriusXM and tune into k-love. And then we get a little devotional book and we start reading that. And then we have a conversation with one of our friends, and we say the word "Jesus". And so what our life winds up looking like is three distinct things. I got my flesh. I got my soul. And I got my spirit. And as long as there's nothing that disturbs you, you just kind of stay like this. Oh, I've been going to church for 30 years, heard lots of truth. But whenever I go to work on Monday, I'm a different person than I am on Sunday. Oh, yeah, I give, a little here, a little there, but I don't tithe. Get in a financial storm.
See how quick you become obedient to the Word of God. The Bible says that your tongue has the power of life and death. Until a storm comes along, you say things throughout the week that you wouldn't dare say on Sunday. But suddenly, you get in a life-or-death battle, and you begin to use the power of declaration to begin to move mountains of impossibility. You hear something you didn't want to hear, and you start saying things you didn't think you could say, like, "All things are possible to them that believe".
You see, until there's a storm that shakes up your life, you can have these compartments in which you are three different kinds of people, one this way and one that way. But when things start to move and get shook up in your life, when something attacks your flesh and it attacks your soul, that's when all of a sudden all of the truth that's been poured into you starts to work through you, and then it comes out of you. And whenever you're in a physical storm, you can say, "By his stripes, I am healed". And when your friends look at you, and they say, "Who can this be"?
You tell them gladly, he's the alpha and he's the omega. He's the Word of God that is made flesh and dwelling among us. He's the God who created heaven and earth and holds the mountains in a scale and the hills in a balance. He's the rock of ages that is immovable from generation to generation. In the darkest day of your life, he's the morning star. Throughout all of history, he's the ancient of days. He is what the angel said, "Immanuel, God with us". He's a redeemer! He's a friend! He's a brother! He's a Savior! He's my Lord! He's my soon-coming king! Give him a shout of praise in this house today!
Would you stand to your feet in the presence of the Lord? If you knew who was on your side, you wouldn't cry out in fear. But in faith, you'd start talking to that storm. In faith, you'd start saying to the storm, "Don't make me wake him up. Don't make me move him. If he gets up, you're going down. So you might as well leave me alone, because greater is he who is in me than he who is in the world". Now, I don't know what your storm is today. But I promise you, you've got them. Don't try to deny them: they're there. We're not going to cry out in fear, but we're going to speak to God in faith. Today is when we're going to mix our faith with the word. Hebrews 4:2, it says, "The gospel that was preached did not profit them, because it was not mixed with their faith".
So today, you get a choice. You can leave here with all the good stuff on top. Or you can decide that you're going to mix it up until what comes out of you that's been stirred up inside of you is enough to cause that storm to break, as the Word of God goes to work in your life. But I want you to know today, no matter the storm, the God that you serve is greater than every storm you're ever going to face. And he cares about you. Give the Lord a handclap of praise in this place.