Finding Peace in Life's Storms with Jesus

There are different kinds of storms. There's storms that we have in our life that comes along and those are storms of health. I mean, Storms come to us, you know, and the thing that made me think about this is all the storms that we've had this week. But there's not there's not just storms of weather. Storms in the scripture are pictures of things that really do happen in life. Yeah, they're real storms. They're real tornadoes and they're real hurricanes and they're real thunderstorms. Those are real. But there are real storms that come in our lives and sometimes they're storms of help. [00:29:41]

Sometimes there's a storm of health. Sometimes there's a financial storm. Uh sometimes we u we have more debt than we have uh we have income. And that's always that's all. and and everybody in here that's that's raised children and bought a home, everybody's been to a place where I don't know how we're going to pay bills. I don't know how we're going to do this. I don't know how we going to do all the things that we need to do. So, sometimes financial storms come along in our lives. And then sometimes there's spiritual storms. [00:30:26]

Sometimes we have a a a problem on the inside when our hearts are not where they need to be and there's a a storm in our spirit. Uh maybe there's a spiritual battle that goes on. Maybe Uh maybe you're dealing with some sin and you have to it's a real, you know, and let's just let's face it, sometimes there's a real struggle with something. Sometimes there's a real struggle with some with some sin. So there's a spiritual storm. Sometimes there's storms in families. [00:31:00]

Sometimes there comes some disagreement or so, you know, the the most common thing that happens in families is property. And that's the craziest thing in the world. You know, who's going to get what when grandpa dies? Well, I'd rather have grandpa than everything that grandpa had. Amen. And so sometimes there stor there storms in families. Sometimes those storms lead lead to divorce. Sometimes those storms lead to separation. Sometimes those storms lead to real tragedies. And then sometimes there's storms in our employment. [00:31:20]

Now, I I think there's some lessons that we can learn in the midst of storms. And I think there's some things that the disciples learned when they went through those difficulties. I think there's things that they learned. So here we go. Jesus is present in the storms of your life if you know Christ. Have you trusted him? If you have trusted him as your savior, then the Bible says, "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." You know what that means? That means that God lives on the inside. So you're never alone. [00:32:24]

If God has a plan for your life, he's going to take you where he wants you to go. And that here's here's our problem. We lose confidence in the fact that he's with us. And we need to understand he has a purpose for your life. And he he he wants to take you to where he wants you to go in the will for your for his in your will for his life. He gives a promise, but this is a promise of security. That's the reason that we can talk about the security security of the believer. [00:33:07]

Let us go. It didn't say you go. He said let us go. He's going to go with you. That's a promise you need to hang on to. He gives a promise of security. Let us go to the other side. Now, here's the two things in this that that we learn about this. His presence, he's with us in the mid middle of our storms. What do you mean? He said we're going to the other side. There's a place he's taking us. [00:33:38]

Death is not death is not the end for the Christian. He has promised that's the reason we can face death with security. That's the reason that we can live a life with security and we can live a life with faith because he said, "I'm going to take you to the other side." And the disciples when when when the storm came uh they were really sweating bullets, weren't they? Then there's a second thing. Jesus permitted the storms. [00:34:15]

Do you know nothing happens in my life and nothing happens in your life that Jesus does not allow? Think about that a minute. Jesus examines everything that's coming in my life and coming in your life. He examines it and he says, "Now I'm going to use some Greek." Okie dokie. He says, "Okay, I'm going to let that listen. God said, "I'm going to let that happen to Job." Think about that. Nothing happened in the book of Job to Job that God did not permit. [00:34:42]

God allowed all of those bad things. He lost all of his wealth and lost his family. Even his wife was was critical of his best friends. And who have you cheated? What have you done? What what bad thing have you done? He lost his friends. And his wife said to him, Why don't you just cut curse God and die? But when she gave up on him, but Job didn't give up on God. Why? He knew that God was with him. And he understood that God permitted those things. [00:35:10]

He led them into the storm. Let us go to the other side. That's a powerful statement. He led them. He didn't just know it was coming. He said, "Boys, take off." He led them into the storm. Not that he allowed them to feel the full fury of the storm. That doesn't sound fair, does it? When we hear in our generation, all we hear is that God loves us. God loves us. God loves us. Well, if he loves us, then why does he let the fury of the storm hit us? He's teaching us some lessons. [00:36:08]

He wants us to realize that in the midst of the storms of life, he's with us. And he's the one that allowed them to feel the fur, the full fury of the storm. And then he appeared to be unconcerned about their situation. You think about that a minute. He's asleep in the boat. The disciples are out there. And I have a picture of this in my mind. The disciples are out there fighting this storm there. I can just see Peter, he the fisherman, the sailor. [00:36:36]

They fail to trust his promises. Do you fail to trust God's promises sometimes? I mean, when you're in the middle of some difficulty, do you do you fail to to recognize that you're in the midst of those difficulties? Do you do you fail to recognize that God has promised you that he's going to take care of youall? My God shall supply all of your needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Have you ha have you kind of backed up and said, "God, you're not taking care of me." [00:39:25]

Don't forget this. God can do anything. God can do anything. God can do what we can't do. God can do the impossible. God, listen, God can help you to believe what I'm saying this morning. As a matter of fact, he can give you the faith to believe what I'm telling you this morning. He could not Could he not perform miracles? Could he not do something to intervene with for them? I think he could. Then there's the purpose of storms. [00:40:50]

Number one, they develop our faith. They develop our faith. They cause us to grow. When if we see that God does something in he he does the impossible in our life or he does something that's kind of miraculous in our life that causes us to understand that he can do it. And when we run into difficulty the next time we believe God will do it. You see that's the diff that's the difficulty in the Christian life. We all think God can do something but our faith fails when we think that God will do something. [00:41:30]

You need your faith developed so when hard times come or when you get a diagnosis or when there's some problem, you can face it with faith and not with fear. then to cause us to realize we need him. The disciples were helpless. They were hopeless. They had no help in what they were doing. I mean, they were all sailors, but the boat was filling filling up with water. They all knew what to do, but nobody could do anything about it. They were in the middle of a real storm. [00:42:41]