[music]
Howdy, Mars Hill.
We are here on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.
This was a region in which much
of Jesus' early ministry occurred.
Luke is one of the most chronological,
perhaps the most chronological, gospels telling the story
of Jesus in historical order.
And he actually reveals to us that the first portion
of Jesus' ministry was in and around Galilee
and the region of Galilee.
The book of Luke actually breaks down at 9:51 where it
says that, "He set his face toward Jerusalem."
That's the geographic breakdown of the book of Luke.
And so up until that point, the first portion of Jesus' ministry
would have been in the region of Galilee,
and then he began his journey toward Jerusalem,
ultimately his crucifixion, and the book then transitions
at 9:51 into Jesus' journey and ultimate death, burial,
resurrection in Jerusalem.
What's interesting, as well, is that most of Jesus' disciples
came from this particular region of Galilee.
If I'm not mistaken, perhaps all but Judas Iscariot,
came from this general region.
Not surprisingly, it was filled with small towns
that were essentially villages for fishing and for farming.
Peter lived not far from here,
as well as Andrew, James, John, Matthew.
Others either lived or resided at certain points
in the ministry of Jesus in this region and area of Galilee.
The towns and villages surrounding us were actually
quite small, 50 to 100 people as we've seen some
of the archaeological digs and investigations.
So you're looking at 10, 12, 15 families, perhaps,
constituting a city or a village.
We know, as well, that 19 of Jesus' 32 parables
were spoken and taught in the region of Galilee,
and as we look around at the panoramic scenery,
it's not surprising that he used a lot of imagery
from fishing and farming.
That would have absolutely been consistent with the landscape
here and upwards behind us over the hill.
What's interesting, as well, is some of the details
about the Sea of Galilee.
I don't know about you, when I first heard
of the Sea of Galilee in the Scriptures,
I did not imagine anything of this scope or magnitude.
You're looking at 12 miles across the lake,
6 miles across the lake,
200 feet deep at it's greatest depth.
And we are told from the locals
that the lake actually was much larger.
The shore would have extended up some additional 40 yards
even last year.
And in the days of Jesus, if you can see into the distance,
there would have been beaches and shores up the hillside,
and with this being a primary source of water,
it has been depleted over the years,
so as magnificent and large as the Sea of Galilee is,
remember that in the days of Jesus,
it was actually much larger.
As you read the Scriptures, you'll hear this referred to
in a variety of ways.
In the Old Testament, you'll hear it called Kinneret.
In the New Testament, it will be referred to as
the Sea of Tiberias, the Sea of Gennesaret,
or the Sea of Chinnereth.
Part of that is because the lake is so large
that there are multiple villages and towns that existed
in the days of Jesus, surrounding the lake,
and so the locals would name it after themselves.
So over in Tiberias, you would call it the Sea of Tiberias.
Likewise, if you were in Chinnereth,
you would call it the Sea of Chinnereth,
so it would be named by the locals contingent upon their
village, and they sort of titled the lake after their locale.
Now, one thing that is interesting, as well, before
we launch into Luke 8 is that though it is calm at present,
for those of us who have been out on the lake
in the evening time, as we did last night,
the wind really does pick up,
and it still does till this day.
Between 3:00 and 4:00 and maybe 6:00 and 7:00 p.m., the winds
really pick up and it can become quite treacherous on the lake.
And so the locals and the fishermen know to be
very careful during those hours, because if you get trapped in
the middle of this lake during the moments of high seas
and high winds, your life is in very severe jeopardy,
and that leads us to Luke 8.
I will read it to you, and we will then pray.
Luke 8:22, "One day, he," that is Jesus,
"got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them,
"'Let us go across to the other side of the lake.'"
Isn't it amazing you read that, and you think 13 men in a boat,
perhaps 6 oars, and they're gonna go for a nice row.
Well, this is the nice row.
This is quite an event.
For Jesus to request this, it's a big commitment
on behalf of his disciples, who were weary and exhausted
after a long day of ministry, to jump in the boat,
to grab the oars, and to make this journey.
"So they set out, and as they sailed he fell asleep.
"And a windstorm came down on the lake,
"and they were filling with water and they were in danger.
"And they went and woke him, saying, 'Master, Master,
"'we are perishing!'
"And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves,
"and they ceased, and there was calm.
"He said to them, 'Where is your faith?'
"And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another,
"'Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water,
and they obey him?'"
Father God, I do thank you that we have an opportunity
to be on the shores of the Sea of Galilee on this,
a Sunday, the resurrection day of Jesus Christ.
And God, we thank you for the opportunity to open
the Scriptures, and see the place where the events
that are recorded faithfully and perfectly transpired.
It is our request, Lord God, as we open the Word of God,
that we would not be focused primarily on the lake
or the storm, but on the one who calmed them.
May we learn about Jesus.
May we learn about his humanity in his exhaustion,
and his divinity in commanding the wind and the waves
to obey him.
And so God, as we open your Word,
we ask that the Holy Spirit,
who has inspired the Scriptures to be written,
would come to illuminate our understanding of them,
so that we might learn to love, appreciate, worship, and serve,
and enjoy Jesus, in whose name we pray, Amen.
Now, what is interesting is that preceding what we just read
in Luke 8, is that Jesus had been doing a lot
of preaching, teaching, healing.
We are told in the section of Luke 8
that precedes the portion we just read,
that large crowds and multitudes were coming to hear Jesus.
And let me just say that this would have been very unusual,
the town he grew up in, Nazareth, was 50,
perhaps a hundred people.
Our guide was gracious enough to inform us that most,
if not all of the women who lived therein,
would have been illiterate, that the men generally
were illiterate, that perhaps only a handful of men,
five or so would have been literate.
And so for Jesus to be literate growing up in a small town
as a carpenter's son, would have been unusual.
For him to be such a learned man and a good teacher,
that they were amazed at his insights earlier in Luke
as he went to the temple and dialogued
with the scholars of the Old Testament Scriptures.
And that he would have been qualified,
competent enough to be called a rabbi.
That's very unusual for a man from such a humble beginning.
And Jesus was a rabbi, meaning he was a preacher and a teacher.
And large crowds would come to him, and we read that,
and we think, "Well, of course, Jesus drew large crowds."
Well, that's because most of us live in cities
in or near major urban centers.
Again, think about spread villages,
50 to 100 people scattered around the lake.
For Jesus to amass audiences of thousands
was an extraordinary event.
And for them to walk in the heat,
for them to come to places, and hear him preach and teach
was very, very unusual.
Well, we are told that the result was Jesus was exhausted.
That's what Luke tells us in chapter 8 beginning in verse 22,
that he was tired, that he was weary.
And I am exhausted, and I am weary driving around in a bus
to see where Jesus walked.
I don't know about you.
I couldn't imagine walking.
I mean, you hear that Jesus went from this town to this town,
and then you realize that that's a few days' walk.
And you read that Jesus wanted to be alone,
and there was a multitude, so he climbed up a hill.
And then you look at Mount Hermon
that's 6,000 feet at its peak, and you realize,
he really wanted some silence and solitude.
And the reason that he was left alone is no one else was willing
or able to make that kind of journey.
Jesus was in extraordinary shape, unbelievable shape.
It has been upwards of 100 degrees
with almost 100% humidity in our time here.
If you can imagine thousands following him everywhere he
went, no hotel to go to, no bus to climb on board, difficulty,
perhaps, finding shade, and water, and food.
He doesn't have a guide.
People are following him, and he's having to lead them.
Some are hurt, some are tired.
Others need prayer.
A few have demons that need to be cast out.
He's been preaching, teaching, answering questions.
He's been doing this for a lengthy season.
He is absolutely exhausted.
Again, I'm tired.
I'm exhausted this morning, to be honest with you.
And I woke up, and I prayed, I said, "Lord, how will I do it?"
And then I remembered I have to preach on Jesus' ministry being
extraordinarily more difficult than anything we've endured,
and that does help us to appreciate what we read
in Luke 8, that the crowds were coming to him.
They were pressing in upon him.
And I'll tell you this, Jesus was fully God, fully man.
And what can happen is sometimes we see Jesus,
almost as if he's Superman, that outwardly he looks like
a humble Galilean peasant, a carpenter, and a rabbi,
but under his cloak, he would have worn a red "S" on his chest
for savior, and that he was indestructible.
And the result is that sometimes we don't fully appreciate
the humanity of Jesus.
Philippians 2:5-11 says that he came humbly,
that he set aside the continual use of his divine attributes,
that God became a man to reconcile men and women to God,
and he did so humbly as our priest, as our intercessor,
as our advocate.
That's why Hebrews says that we do not have a high priest
who is unable to sympathize with us in our weakness,
but he has been through what we have been through.
He understands what we are enduring.
And so he was absolutely fatigued, exhausted.
And I can tell you as a pastor with a ministry that is far less
demanding than Jesus', it does get exhausting.
There is a limit to the number of hours you can work.
There is a limit to how far you can press yourself.
There is a limit to even though you love people,
how many you can serve continually.
I'm here right now, to be honest with you, with
an ulcer that I've been enjoying for about a month or so,
just from overwork, and pressure,
and requirements of ministry.
And that's with all of the advent of modern technology,
that's with the support of a wife, and a family, and a staff.
I can't even imagine the pressure
of the ministry of Jesus.
There was no one that drew the crowds that he did.
A typical rabbi would have a synagogue
in one of these small towns that would attract upwards
of 20 people for the Scripture reading on the Sabbath.
And Jesus has thousands that follow him wherever he goes.
I want you to get the magnitude of the exhaustion of Jesus.
So what does he tell his disciples?
"Pull up a boat."
And Peter and others were fisherman,
they had fished on this lake.
They had spent much of their upbringing here.
This is where they fed their families,
and where they enjoyed their trade, as it were.
And he realized the only way to get away from people
was to go out there, was to go out there.
They couldn't follow him, and if they did follow him,
it would only be for a while.
And so he asked his disciples to get him a boat, and to take him
to the other side, perhaps knowing that the crowds would
meet him there eventually, but he might actually get a day off.
Jesus is so exhausted, we are told,
that he goes underneath, or into the boat.
And we can assume, we saw yesterday,
the excavation of a roughly 2,000-year-old fishing boat.
It gives you some idea of what Jesus and the disciples were on.
Thirteen men on a boat of that size,
it would have been a full boat under a heavy load.
And we saw on that boat there was a potential place,
if Jesus' boat was the same or similar,
for him to tuck away to get some sleep.
Now, how tired is Jesus when that looks like a nice hotel?
When that looks like a good place to sleep?
He's that exhausted.
He lays down to sleep, and the disciples faithfully--
the fishermen who are well schooled
in how to cross this lake, they begin rowing,
perhaps six of them, and then the men are, perhaps,
taking shifts, six at a time, and they begin rowing,
and what do we read?
Well, we read, "A windstorm came down on the lake,
and they were filling with water and were in danger."
These are men who knew the seas well.
These are fisherman, these are not novices,
and they realize this storm is potentially catastrophic.
Some of the other gospels will record
that they had been rowing all night.
Now, you understand that the disciples are exhausted as well.
They've been preaching, and teaching, and feeding,
and tending to, looking after thousands,
taking care of the elderly, tending to the children.
People are dehydrated, they're hot, they're hungry,
some are grumpy, some, perhaps, fell,
rolled their ankle, got injured.
There's pregnant women to tend to.
There's conflict to mediate.
The disciples are equally exhausted.
And they're rowing all night, and if you can imagine being
out on this sea in the middle of the night,
it is just utter and complete darkness in the days of Jesus.
And so if, in fact, it was night,
they had very difficult capacity of even seeing
a fire over on the shore.
At some point you just get exhausted and bewildered.
You're just rowing, and you're disoriented.
And they know we are not making progress.
This storm is so strong, we have been turned around so many times
that we don't know if we'll be able to survive,
and find our place to shore.
And so in a moment of desperation,
the fishermen come to the end of themselves.
And my guess is they don't want to awaken Jesus.
They love him.
They know he's exhausted, and if anyone needs this rest,
it is that man.
And they awaken Jesus, "Master, master, we hate to awaken you.
There's nothing else we can do, humanly speaking."
The fishermen are going to drown on the lake that they
have spent their life navigating storms.
And so what does Jesus do?
"He awoke, he rebuked the wind and the raging waves,
and they ceased, and there was a calm."
There's no indication that this was a long process,
that this took a lot of time, or that for Jesus,
this was even very complicated.
"Jesus, we hate to awaken you.
We're all going to die."
Jesus stands up, "Stop," and perhaps lays back down,
and goes back to sleep.
And the wind dies.
And again if you're here during the winds,
these are strong winds that go for multiple hours,
and at times, can kick up unexpectedly.
Not only did the winds obey him, but the waves obey him.
He just looks at the sea, calm,
and it's tranquil as we enjoy it this morning.
Now, Luke, who is writing this, is a medical doctor.
He's an educated man.
He was a traveling companion of Paul.
He opens Luke by telling us that he is basing his biography of
Jesus on eyewitness testimony, that he was financed by
Excellent Theophilus, perhaps a governor or leader
with that title "Excellent."
And this was his benefactor, so we can assume that Theophilus,
this affluent man, helped to finance Luke's research.
Luke, being a medical doctor, also would have invested his
life savings, and taken multiple years to travel throughout
this region to interview those who were involved.
And so this is based upon the eyewitness testimony
of some of the men who were there.
Luke actually interviewed them.
He talked to Peter and others and he would have asked them
exactly what happened.
He confirmed that all of their stories corroborated,
and that this is, in fact, what happened,
and is historically accurate.
He said to them, "Where is your faith?"
Why?
They were amazed.
They were absolutely stunned.
They knew Jesus was a miracle worker, and a demon caster,
and a great teacher, but this is the revelation
of their friend Jesus as God incarnate,
as the second member of the Trinity,
the Son of God coming into human history.
"And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another,
"'Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water,
'and they obey him?'"
The disciples are bewildered.
"Who is this Jesus?
"We thought he was a holy man, a rabbi, perhaps a prophet.
"Like many do today, he's a good man,
"and a moral teacher, and a wonderful example,
"and maybe had a bit of supernatural capacity,
"but this far exceeds anything we had previously ascertained
"about this man, Jesus.
Who is he?"
That's a great question.
It's a great question, and it reveals the divinity of Jesus.
It reveals the divinity of Jesus.
And here we see the divinity and humanity of Jesus
coming together.
The humanity: he is fully man.
He is completely exhausted.
He's fully God, and the wind and the waves obey him.
Now, what has happened in the history of Christianity
is that some have stressed the humanity of Jesus,
they tend to be more liberal.
Others stress the divinity of Jesus,
they tend to be more fundamental.
And the Bible says that "Jesus was fully man, fully God.
One person, two natures."
We're not teaching that a man became God.
We're teaching that God became a man.
In 451, the Christians got together
for the Council of Chalcedon,
and they termed this "the hypostatic union."
Jesus is one person with two natures: fully man, fully God.
And we see this here as he is preaching, and teaching,
and working, and feeding, and healing, and casting out demons,
he does so out of his humanity as a man, fully exhausted,
desperate for a break, needing reprieve from the crowds,
asleep in a boat, so tired that he sleeps
through a horrendous storm.
And then we see him reveal his divinity
in two ways, number one:
it reveals to us that Jesus is Creator.
We are told throughout Scripture that Jesus is Creator.
We read in Genesis 1
that everything that came into existence and all of creation
was by virtue of the Word of God,
that God proverbially spoke creation into existence.
God said and it was so. God said and it was so.
That's the rhythm of Genesis 1.
We then read in places like John 1:3 of Jesus,
"All things are made through him."
And Colossians 1:16, "By him all things were created."
And so God spoke creation into existence,
and Jesus is that God who spoke creation into existence.
This explains why the wind and the waves obeyed his voice.
This is the voice they had heard previously at creation.
It was the Word of God.
It was the declaration of God in Genesis 1 that caused
all that is to come into existence out of nothing,
what the theologians would call "ex nihilo."
It says it this way in Hebrews 11,
"Out of nothing, everything was made."
God didn't start with matter, God started himself existing
eternally, and he created time, space, and matter.
He spoke the world, and the wind,
and the waves into existence.
And his name is Jesus Christ.
And so when he then enters into his creation,
adds to his divinity, humanity,
to quote the church father Augustine,
he stands up and speaks, and creation obeys him,
because he is the author of creation.
The same one who spoke this world into existence
just gave it a command to obey him.
And does it?
Absolutely.
And the disciples, in seeing this,
they recognize, "This is God.
This is God among us."
Only God has authority to command the wind and the waves.
And these were men who were learned in Scripture,
and they would have taken note of many Scriptures.
Due to the heat and the time, I won't read them all,
but the Psalms speak frequently of God's voice
being the only one that can still the waves and the waters.
Psalm 65:7, Psalm 89:9, Psalm 106:7-9,
and Psalm 107:23-29.
I'll read one for you as well, Psalm 89:9.
"You," speaking of God, "Rule the raging of the sea;
When its waves rise, you still them."
I'll read it again.
"You rule the raging of the sea; When its waves rise,
you still them."
These men were familiar with the Psalms,
this and others, where it says that the wind and the waves
were under the jurisdiction of the God
who created the heavens and the earth.
And this Jesus who has come is Creator God,
and sovereign ruling reigning God,
to the degree that the wind and the waves obey him.
That being said, we're here to worship Jesus,
to acknowledge that our creator is also our redeemer,
and our sustainer.
He's our savior.
His name is Jesus, and that our life is much like
that occasion recorded in Luke 8.
We are living our life, we are exhausted, we are weary.
Crisis comes out of nowhere, and it is good for us
to always do as they did, and go find the Master,
to go to Jesus in prayer, to go to Jesus in Scripture,
to go to Jesus in song, to go to Jesus requesting help.
And they did the absolutely only thing that they could do,
and what is interesting is that they didn't go to Jesus until
they had exhausted all of their own efforts.
And so many of us live so much of our lives in that same trap.
Out of nowhere, comes a great storm.
We work ourselves until the point of being at the end,
and then in desperation, we call out to Jesus.
He comes to help, to serve, to be with us.
And friends, I would just encourage you,
it's not something I've practiced well,
but we should go to Jesus first,
and we should ask the one who created the world,
and rules the world to help us as his servants in it.
So Father God, we thank you for the Scriptures.
We thank you for the Lord Jesus.
We thank you that he is Creator, he made the world.
We thank you that he is Savior, he came into the world to live
without sin, to die for sinners, to rise for salvation.
We thank you, Lord Jesus, that you are sovereign,
and ruling and reigning over creation today.
And we thank you that whatever storm we find ourselves in,
no matter how hard we have rowed against it,
that if we simply come to you, you do love us,
you will navigate for us, you will get us through it,
that you are deliverer and savior.
We love you, we worship you, we thank you, and we thank you,
Lord God, that we get an opportunity to understand
a little bit more of Jesus as we enjoy the Scriptures
here on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.
We're grateful for this gift.
In Jesus' good name, Amen.