Killed it. Great job. Thank you all for coming up. I love all the things that God is doing in and through their lives.
So I want you to just imagine with me for a moment that you were invited to a party. Okay. So you're invited to a party and you're hanging out with friends. And at this party, you heard that there is going to be a man, a man that has been hanging out with all of your friends. And this man is maybe different than some of your other friends. This man has done a few extraordinary things.
One of your friends was wearing glasses and his eyesight was getting worse and worse over the years. And even the glasses couldn't keep up with it. And so while they were hanging out one day, this man spit into some dirt, made mud, and put it in his eyes. And now all of a sudden he can see, not only with his glasses, but without glasses, he could just see.
And then one of your friend's kids, since birth, was in a wheelchair and they couldn't walk. And then you walk into your friend's house into this party, and she's up and about and she's walking around, and she's been fully healed. And so you're getting to know this person and you're hanging out with this friend group and you're actually observing and watching this man do pretty extraordinary things.
And then you start hearing these murmurs and these thoughts or ideas that maybe this is the Messiah, like actually God that came down to earth. And so you're trying to wrap your mind around this. And one day this man says to your buddy that has a boat, "Hey, why don't we go out? You know, we're in Southwest Florida. That's why we're here, right? It's a nice day out. Let's go out on a boat to the Caloosahatchee and take a little sunset cruise."
And so you're great. So you all jump in a boat, and you're headed out and the weather's great and you're relaxing and you're kicking back. But then all of a sudden a storm comes. And all of a sudden the water starts getting wavy and water starts crashing and the wind's blowing, and you're freaking out. Your friends are freaking out. And even the boat captain's freaking out.
Then you turn and you see this man just sleeping on the back of the boat. And so you're like, "Oh, I got to wake him." And so you go over and you shake him and you're like, "We're going to die." He just kind of casually sits up, wipes the sleep from his eye, and just says, "Be still, be calm."
And the winds just stop. And the rain just stops and the skies clear out, and you're sitting there and you're just like, "What is happening that even though the winds and the waves, they would obey him?"
And that's where we find ourselves in this story. That's what we see in Luke 8. We're walking into the story, preparing our hearts and our minds in a season of Advent.
So what is Advent? Advent is the arrival of a person, place, or thing. It's this expectation. You're anticipating something to take place, something to happen. And specifically for us in this season of Advent, we're awaiting a coming Messiah, Jesus, God himself, Emmanuel, who came to save the world.
And so we're preparing our hearts through these stories of peace, of hope, of joy, and of love. And so we're jumping into this story, a story of peace. And we're going to look at three aspects of storms.
These three aspects are reluctance, reality, and result. What is the reluctance of storms, the reality of storms, and the result of storms?
So let me pray for us, and then we're going to jump in.
Father, thank you for your word. God, you are holy, and God, we sit and we do marvel at who you are and what you have done. God, I pray that this would not just be a season of us scrambling around to wrap gifts and hang lights, but that we would recognize that the creator of all things has come to bring us life, to bring light in the midst of darkness, hope for the hopeless, rest for the weary, freedom for the captive.
And God, we link arms with every other church that stands firm on Jesus Christ as the only way, the only truth, and the only life. God, I thank you that we are a part of a network of churches, the Great Commission Collective, that are proclaiming truth all over the world.
God, I thank you for our mother church, Summit, that has just graciously, time and time again, served us and loved us and supported us. God, I thank you for Orlando and Jamin and Joe and Kyle and Jeremiah and the whole team there that continually just loves us so well and that shares the gospel with the community in such a great way.
God, I thank you for Ocean Church, and thank you for Sanibel Community Church and Faith Bible. God, I pray that these churches would share your good news through faith, action, and words so that people will come to know you as their Lord and as their Savior.
God, prepare our hearts now so that we may see how we can depend on you in the middle of life's storms. We love you. In your name we pray. Amen.
So the first aspect that we're going to look at is the reluctance of storms. So we're seeing this in verses 22 and 23 where this storm kicks up, they're out on the water, and the disciples start to freak out. I mean, nobody wants to be caught up in the storm.
I don't know if we have any fishermen here in the room. If you've ever been fishing, you wouldn't necessarily consider yourself a fisherman, but you like to go maybe every now and again. I was out with my buddies one time, and I remember it was a clear day. I mean, we were having a blast. And then all of a sudden, we started seeing these gray clouds just roll in.
And we know in Southwest Florida, I mean, it could just hit like in a moment. Like clear skies, and all of a sudden, boom, rain. And you're trying to outrun the storm or get back to the shore, get back to safety. Like nobody likes to be caught in a storm.
But these storms are not just literal. They can be figurative storms too. I mean, there are emotional storms, relational storms. There are all different types of ways that we experience complications and hardships in life.
And that's what we're going to see here. Life comes with challenges, fears, unknowns. You know, for this week, our family went on vacation. And so we got a stay and play vacation down at the Coconut Hyatt. And we thought we were just going to relax and kick back and mosey around the lazy river.
I don't know if there's ever moseying around the lazy river when you have five kids that you're chasing after. Apparently, I'm the alligator and I've got to get them. So it's not too lazy, but we were just going to go have fun.
And then all of a sudden, it seems like every facet of our lives began to have storm, storm, storm, storm, storm. And storms don't like to just hit one at a time.
Anybody else experience that? Like when storms hit, they just all hit. I mean, you just get hammered from all different ways, all different directions. And it wasn't necessarily the relaxing time that we had hoped for.
We're reluctant to go into storms like that. We don't want to go into storms like that. I mean, days and weeks like this don't bode well for people who like to be in control. Anyone else? I mean, we like to be in control. We like to know what's going to happen, what's going to happen. We like to plan out. But then life happens.
I mean, think about the reality for a second. I mean, would you really want to know? Like if a storm was going to happen, would you want to know before it happened? I mean, you think so, right? You think that you'd want to know. I'd want to prepare. I'd want to get things together for this storm.
But imagine for a moment that you've got this machine that you could put a helmet on and out of a printer comes out all the problems that you're going to face. You can't change the problems. You can't do anything to alter those problems. You're just going to know about them.
So you're sitting there reading this printout, this piece of paper, that is articulating to you every storm that you're going to face in the next 5, 10, 15 years. Like, is that what you really want, control freaks? You're just going to know it's going to happen?
I mean, on this paper, maybe it says something like, in the next 5 years, you're going to struggle in your marriage. You're going to lose your job. You're going to go bankrupt. You're going to get robbed. Your house is going to flood. You're going to experience infertility, illness. And you can't do anything about it.
So now you just live in perpetual fear and anxiety because you know it's going to happen. So we say we want to know; we say we want to be in control, but life is not about being in control. And we know that from experience. If you've lived any sort of life, even our teenagers know that life doesn't always happen the way you want it to happen.
I mean, it wouldn't make our life any better just to know. Life storms are outside of our control. And some hit over time. Some hit all of a sudden. It's kind of the difference between the hurricane and the tornadoes that just hit us, right?
I mean, there's the hurricane where it seemed like we were waiting for weeks for that thing to hit. You heard it was in the Gulf somewhere. And at some point, it was going to hit. But then as it got closer, all of a sudden, these little tornadoes start touching down. And we're like freaking out because no one prepared for that.
That's not going to happen. That's what we experience with storms in life. We don't want to experience storms. So this is the reluctance of storms.
But then there's a reality that comes with storms. And this is why we are in this passage. Because there's a reality about storms and a storm that we see here that echoes on and ripples on to every single storm that you and I will ever face.
So here's in every storm and every problem, every life circumstance, here's three realities. First, the journey was Jesus's idea. Look at verse 22. What does Jesus say? "Let's go. Let's go. Let's get in the boat. And let's go."
Now, the Bible front to back speaks of something called the sovereignty of God. That's a big word, sovereignty. But what does that mean? It means that God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and everywhere. That means he knows what's going to happen before it happens. And he has plans for those things that happen.
Now, we like to think that we're sovereign sometimes. Maybe not you, but sometimes I think that I'm in control. Sometimes I think I'm smart enough, or strong enough, or whatever, that I can handle what's about to hit me. But in reality, I'm not. Maybe there's a millisecond in my life where I'm in control. Maybe there's a millisecond of my entire life that I can say, at that point, I might have felt like I had a glimpse of control. But that's about it. I am not sovereign.
But God, the one who created all things, the one that created you and me, is sovereign. And the reality is that the journey was Jesus's idea. In fact, your life was Jesus's idea. Jeremiah 1:5 says, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I set you apart."
Proverbs 16:9, "The heart of man plans his way. Yes, yeah. But what? But God, the Lord, establishes his steps." We can make plans, but God is the one who's in control. God does have a plan for you.
And get this, if you hear nothing else, get this. Your storms do not take God by surprise. They may catch you by surprise, but they do not catch God by surprise. God says that his ways are not your ways. His thoughts are not your thoughts. Jesus's brother says, actually consider it joy when you face trials, storms, because it produces in you a hope for your God, for Jesus.
Paul says that these storms, he actually calls them momentary afflictions. Now, when you're in them, they don't feel like momentary afflictions. But why does he say that? Because he has his eyes fixed and focused on eternity. And he says these momentary afflictions are doing what? They're creating an eternal weight of glory. That God is preparing something.
See, the journey to get in the boat was Jesus's idea. But here's the second reality. Because Jesus's invitation into the boat doesn't mean that the journey is going to be easy. I don't know where anybody would ever think that just because you profess faith in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, that you're going to have an easy life.
Doesn't say that anywhere in here. In fact, these are stories of people who had really hard lives, but God was with them in it. And here's the second thing. Jesus was with them in the storm.
Jesus was with them in the storm. I mean, look at these verses. Jesus was on the boat with them. Now, I want us to try to wrap our minds around this because I think sometimes when it comes to the Trinity, we get this a little screwed up. But God himself was present with them in the storm.
Now, I grew up in a more charismatic church, and there was a lot of talk of guardian angels in that church specifically. And so they talk a lot about, "Oh, my guardian angels," and there's guardian angels around you, and they have this hedge of protection around you. The Bible speaks of this spiritual world that exists around us, but I think we miss the fact that our full dependence and our hope is not in angels, but in God, who controls those angels.
And in fact, the Bible says that God himself dwells within us. So Jesus leaves eternity, wraps himself in flesh, dies on a cross, raises again, and then he's hanging out with the disciples, and he says to them, "It is better that I leave you."
So Jesus, incarnate, God in the flesh, says it's better that I leave you so that I will do what? I will send my helper. Who's the helper he's speaking of? The Holy Spirit that will dwell within you.
The Holy Spirit is not a junior God, not a demigod, not like subservient. He is God. He is God. You and I, when we profess faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit dwells within us, and the power of God is present with us in every moment and every storm that we will ever face in our entire lives.
Why do we walk around and experience life without this understanding that God is presently with us in this moment? He's not distant. He is here in us, dwells with us. We are called his temple.
And so when we look at the reality that Jesus was with them in the storm, I mean, that's a big deal. Because no matter what storm or pain or brokenness you experience, what? God is with you.
We just walked through the whole book of Joshua. What was the theme of that whole book? God, Yahweh, is with you wherever you go. Deuteronomy 31:6-8 says to you, in all the storms, pain, and all the stuff, "Be strong and courageous. Do not fear, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you."
You are going to experience storms. One of my mentors always said, and I say this often, you're either coming out of a storm, you're in a storm, or you're headed to one. God is with you wherever you go. Jesus was with them in the storm.
And here's the final reality that we see. He said, Jesus was in control. Jesus was in control. Jesus is not rattled by your storms. We get rattled.
All right, confession time. Who gets rattled when things hit them out of nowhere and a storm hits in life? Okay, I'm not alone in that. Like, Jesus is not rattled by your storms. He is allowing them because he is going to work all things for your good and his glory.
In the moment, I know, because if you're in it right now, you're like, "It doesn't feel that way." But I can look back over 40 years of life and say every single thing that I experienced, every single thing, God worked something in that to help me grow more into his image and depend more fully on him.
Jesus is not rattled by your storms. He's not rattled here. I mean, look at the text. What do we see here? I mean, storms raging, disciples are freaking out, and then look, what does it say? "Master, master, we are perishing."
And what does it say? He awoke, freaked out, started screaming, running around the boat. What? I don't know what to do. No, he goes, he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was calm.
Because God is in control of the storms and he is not rattled by the storms. Think of the biggest storm that you've ever faced in your entire life. Right now, try to recall it in your mind. I know that sometimes you don't like to do that.
But when you think about, maybe it was a financial issue, maybe you lost everything in a flood or a hurricane. Maybe it was an affair, an addiction. The worst earthly storm that you have ever faced or will ever face pales in comparison to the storm you face when you face your sinful nature and an eternal separation from God himself.
See, when God created humanity, he created us to have a perfect relationship with him. But sin severed that relationship, created a chasm that you and I could never get over or accomplish on our own. We can't earn his favor. We can't earn a relationship with him. We can't accomplish any sets of do's or don'ts. We truly bring nothing to the table but our sin and shame and our guilt.
And the biggest storm you have ever faced is not financial. It's not political. The biggest storm you've ever faced is your sin and your eternal separation from God. But there's this diagram that has impacted my life in such a way because it shows us the reality of what Jesus has accomplished for us.
He has created a bridge from our sinful nature to God in spite of us. Not for us to earn, not for us to accomplish. He created a bridge that has overcome all of the sin, brokenness, and shame. The worst thing we will ever experience, an eternal separation from God. He has come to give us life and life to the full.
His presence with us. Like Christmas, yeah, we do maybe lights on our house and put up trees and decorate. And often that stuff just brings more anxiety and stress in our lives. But we do it anyway every year. We say we love it, but then we have to pull the boxes out and that stinks.
We don't do all that to get a couple of gifts that we may throw out in a few years. We do all that because we are remembering that God left eternity, wrapped himself in flesh, was born a baby so that he can go to a cross to destroy the chasm between us and God so that we can be with him forever.
That is the beauty of the gospel. That is the beauty of why we are here today when we're talking about having the arrival, the awaiting of a coming savior and a coming king is so that we can be with God forever and ever.
And so when we face storms, when we experience storms—and we are going to—we have to remember that the journey was Jesus's idea and that Jesus is with us in the storm. And Jesus is in control.
That's the reality that we sit in when we place our faith and our hope and our trust in him and him alone. That's the beauty of the gospel. That's why we gather. That's why we sing is because we're remembering the goodness of the Lord and what he has done for us.
And so what's the result? What's the result of these storms? Well, we see it here. One, there's calm. There's peace. There is peace that comes into our lives. In fact, the Lord tells us to rejoice, and he says to bring our request to him, and what happens? His peace will overcome us.
Now, I can tell you from experience that there have been moments of my life where it feels like everything's unraveling out of control, and finally, when the Spirit stirs in me against my own stubbornness to remember that I have God himself dwelling within me, and I fall on my knees, and I begin to pray, what happens in those moments is that God's peace does begin to form and shape in our lives.
Because if you're anything like me, when a storm begins to hit, do you ever get that knot? Where does your knot land? Sometimes it's here. Sometimes it's here. Sometimes it's like right here, right? You get that feeling where you just don't know what to do, and you almost feel paralyzed.
God is here to bring us peace in the midst of the storm. He is powerful enough to speak and cause the wind and the waves to settle, and there's strength. Oh, strength is so good. It strengthens our faith.
The result of storms is that storms strengthen our faith, and they lead us to worship. They lead us to fall down. They lead us to fall down and marvel at the greatness of who he is.
Often when I'm thinking about my own sin and my own lack of dependence on how present God is in my life, it often reminds me about forging metal. And so metal forging, often what they'll do is that they'll put metal in a fire, and they'll melt it down. Titanium is different, though. When you begin to heat up titanium, it actually makes it stronger.
And so they forge titanium and heat, but it continues to get stronger and stronger and stronger. That's what we're seeing here. That's what we see in scripture about our faith and trials and storms. That's why James would even say, "Consider it joy that you face these trials," because it produces in you where God is heating us up and then allowing us to be strengthened over and over and over again.
If you've walked with the Lord for any amount of time, I want to ask you, when you look back at the beginning of your faith journey and now, has God transformed you over that time? He has strengthened your faith.
Now, there are these moments where we kind of feel like we have these ebbs and flows, but God is in the transformation business. That's what he does. He transforms through his power, through his Holy Spirit.
So what does he do? He brings in peace. He strengthens our faith, and all of that causes us to marvel at the goodness of the Lord.
So storms strengthen faith when we trust and believe that Jesus is with us, and he is in control.
So in this season of Advent, as we begin to prepare our hearts and minds, we must pause to remember that the King of Kings has come, and he is with us in every storm. So we need to trust him and place all of our trust in him. All of our hope and our faith in him. Amen.
Can I pray for us?
Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for this story about disciples facing a storm. Even when you were present, God, you allowed this storm to take place so that they may experience peace, that they may experience a strengthening in their faith, and that they may sit and worship and marvel at how amazing and awesome and powerful you are.
God, we don't like storms. But God, I thank you that you allow us to face them not alone, that you are with us, that you are present, that you are near, that you hold us in the moments that we feel like our worlds are unraveled.
God, I pray that you would keep our eyes fixed and focused on eternity. God, we are not just remembering the arrival of a baby. We are anticipating the arrival of your second coming. We're anticipating the moment where you come and you wipe away every tear and every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that you are Lord.
And all of the storms that we're experiencing will fade away, and there'll be no more crying. God, I pray that you would keep our eyes fixed on no more tears and no more hurt and no more pain.
God, I pray that we as your people would keep our eyes fixed on eternity. God, you are our peace in the storm. So I pray no matter what we're going through, no matter what we're facing, I pray that we would trust you.
God, there are so many people within that we could and should and do pray over. God, I think of Barbie who's in the hospital right now that's going to be getting surgery tomorrow. I think of Pam who's just wrestling and dealing with different health issues. God, I think of Kathy who is experiencing potentially cancer coming back.
God, I think of my dad who is going in for heart surgery this week. God, and for every other person that is a part of our church family, I pray that right now they would experience your peace, that they would know that you are with them, that they will not fear, that they will marvel at your presence.
Make yourself known. God, if someone's dealing with addiction, with pain, with hurt, with sin, God, I pray that your presence would be near. I pray that they would experience you in a fresh, new way.
God, I pray that they would experience you in a fresh, new way. For those that are desiring to grow more into your likeness, for those that are desiring to experience more of you, God, pour your spirit out over us that we may experience a fresh, new life with you.
We love you. We lift this all up in the beautiful name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Amen.
At this time, we're going to take communion. Communion is a beautiful representation of the gospel. When Jesus was with his closest friends, he took bread and he broke it. He said, "This is my body broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me."
Then he took the cup. He said, "This is my blood poured out for you. Do this in remembrance of me." So we take time to repent of our sins, of our hurts, to surrender our lives. And then we come and we remember the goodness of the Lord, that he is present, that he is present, that he is present, that he is present, that he is near, that he is with us.
The way we practice this, if you're new, is we take bread and we dip it in the cup and then we take it whenever you're ready. Also, if you're gluten-free, those little cups are gluten-free options. So I know some people haven't been taking communion because they didn't know that that's what those are. But those are for people that are gluten intolerant because we want everybody to experience this beautiful moment of remembrance and the sacrament of communion.
So when you're ready, take some time, pray before the Lord, and come receive the goodness of communion with our Father. Love you guys. God bless.
God bless.
Tell the world the treasure you found. Tell the world the treasure you found.
And after humbly seeking the advice of the lead team and our trusted team of advisors, David and Kate had come to the conclusion that David is going to step back from his ministry role here at FMCC.
While this is a difficult decision for them, we as the lead team do believe that this is the best thing for he and his family in this season. We are all going to miss David's energy and his excitement and all the things that he brought to our leadership team here at the church.
But we as a lead team do want to clarify that this is not due to any disqualifying or inappropriate behavior. David did not do anything wrong. David is taking time to spend time with his family and invest in his family. We support him. We love him in this.
I think often when you're involved in a church, you think that sometimes there's more to the story. The more to the story is that he is doing the thing that he needs to do to care for and love his family really well. We love David. He is awesome.
And the good news for us is that they're going to still be around. So just like the Carltons, when Stephen transitioned off our staff and they stuck around and he still serves, so the Pline family will still be around. They'll still be a major part of our church family.
He's just not going to serve any longer on staff in a staff role. And so we love them. If you have any questions, feel free. If you have a personal relationship with them, reach out to them. They would love to share more of their story with you.
And if you have any questions about what's next for FMCC and what we're doing, in the meantime, Lewis is going to be taking over our youth ministry and giving leadership to that as we seek the Lord for what's next for specifically our family ministries and our youth ministry.
But know that more than anything, we love them. They are actually on vacation. That was not planned. We didn't do this on purpose. They went away. We were going to announce this next week, and I'm going to be flying up to be with my dad after his heart surgery that he's having on Wednesday.
And so because I was going to be here next week, we didn't want to push it off two weeks. And so we asked David and Kate if we could just share this with you guys.
So one of the things that happens within churches too is that if you don't talk about these things right up front, then people begin to speculate and all these things, and that's just not the case. We love them. We want to protect them in this, and we want you to know that we fully support them in this, and we're really proud of them for taking this step.
And so we're going to be here. If you have any other things, things you want to chat about and talk about, we're here. But Lewis is going to give us the benediction. So if you would stand back up with us again as we receive our benediction.
on Dec 01, 2024
