Elevate - Is Jesus in Your Boat

The disciples didn't fully understand Jesus' authority, but they followed and loved Him. They witnessed a storm and thought they were going to die, but Jesus calmed the storm and showed His power over creation. If Jesus is leading you, He will get you to where you need to be. No obstacle can stop what God wants to accomplish in your life. It's important to be led by Jesus and have Him with you in the boat through life's storms. The disciples did not quite understand Jesus' authority in this moment. They followed Him, they loved Him, they loved hearing Him teach. It was wonderful, but they didn't get at that point that even creation obeyed Jesus. Therefore, there is nothing that can stop what God wants to accomplish in your life. Even the wind and the waves, all of creation obeyed Him. So be led by Jesus and you can be assured of arrival. Welcome to Elevate, an authentic life church in Mobile, Alabama with Pastor John DiQuatro. We hope it builds your faith and helps you to live a life for God that you've always wanted to live. We hope it inspires you to be a fully devoted, authentic follower of Jesus Christ. Enjoy the message and welcome to Elevate. I want to preach a message to you that I feel like the Lord gave me actually in a Bible study that I was attending and we were just in discussion and the Lord just dropped something in my spirit during that Bible study and I felt like that's what He wanted me to share with you this morning. And so, just something that, you know, we all face difficulty in life. We all face tumultuous moments. We all face chaos. Heck, if you were alive and breathing in the world over the last three years, you've experienced chaos and storms and craziness in your life. And we've all experienced that. And I love the fact that the Word of God gives us the answers to when we're experiencing that type of tumultuous and chaotic environment in our life. And so, we're going to talk about a particular story that took place with Jesus and His disciples. And so, kind of as we set the stage for this particular story, Jesus was teaching by the Sea of Galilee and He's preaching His heart out and He's telling parables and He's drawing huge crowds all around Him and some people are just hanging on every word that Jesus says and some people are confused a little bit because He's teaching in parables. But His disciples, the ones that He's brought close to Him, they're getting the inside scoop, right? Jesus is like, yeah, I told this and all these people seem confused, but let me tell you what this parable means. And they're just happy to be with Jesus. They're happy to be associated with Jesus. They're happy to hear Him teach and watching Him heal and He's doing miracles and they're serving in whatever way they can. But the disciples are still learning who Jesus is. They're still trying to figure Him out, as if we could actually do that. But they're trying to understand who this God is. They know that He's got an amazing teaching. They know that the demonstration of miracles is qualifying what He's saying to be true. But these guys have been strong Jews all their lives, right? These disciples, they know the Jewish way. That's all that they know. And so there's a lot of reprogramming to be done in order for them to fully accept who Jesus is, the Messiah, the Savior. So today, in this story, they're going to really get a handle on who Jesus is and they're going to find out. So we're going to be in the book of Mark and we're going to be in chapter 4 and beginning in verse 35 and it goes like this. The day when evening came, or that day when evening came, He said to His disciples, Let us go over to the other side. Leaving the crowd behind, they took Him along, just as He was in the boat. There were also other boats with Him. A furious squall came up and the waves broke over the boat so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke Him and said to Him, Teacher, don't you care if we drown? He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, Quiet! Be still! Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to His disciples, Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no face? They were terrified and they asked each other, Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey Him. Wow, what a jaw-dropping, eye-opening event for the disciples to experience. I mean, imagine, put yourself into that story. Imagine that you were one of the disciples and you witnessed this. Now, we read a story like this and it's just very matter-of-fact. This happened, that happened, this happened, that happened. But these were real people. So put yourself in this situation with me for a moment. There's a storm that's raging all around them. They're in a boat in the middle of a lake. And there's a storm raging with no signs of letting up. There is water from the lake that's supposed to be in the lake coming into the boat where there's not supposed to be any water. The sails are all torn to shreds from the wind. And the wind is blowing so much so that the boat is rocking almost completely on its side so that it seemed like it was about to capsize. And there's nothing else that you can do. You're almost certainly going overboard and you're not going to make it. This is how you'd be feeling in this moment if you were one of the disciples. Then up from the bottom of the boat steps Jesus. He wipes all the sleep out of His eyes and He calmly assesses the situation. He looks at the damaged boat. He looks at the water level that's rising in the hull of the boat. He looks up and He sees the torn sails. The rain is still beating down and the thunder is still clapping really loud. And there's another wave off in the distance and it's rising and it's rising. And for sure, that wave is going to be the one that takes the boat over. So Jesus just quietly raises His hands to heaven in a firm but authoritative voice. He shouts, Be quiet! Be still! And just then, the rain stops. The wind dies down. The wave that was on its way melts back into the ocean. What was once strong winds turns into a gentle, refreshing, soft breeze. The clouds roll back and the sun begins to come out and it's bright and it's shining and it's creating this tropical feeling as it burns off all of the water that's still hanging around in the air and you stand there just dumbfounded at what happened looking at Jesus with your jaw in your hand. This is what the disciples experienced. This is not just some cutesy Sunday school story that we learned when we were 8 years old. This was reality. They witnessed this. They were in the middle of this storm and thought they were going down. They were going to die. This is what the disciples experienced. But there's so much that we can learn from this one account in the Bible of the power that Jesus has over all of creation. And so we're going to look at this verse by verse and learn from it a little bit. It says here, verse 35, it says, On that day when evening came, He said to His disciples, let us go over to the other side. He said, let us go over to the other side. What He did not say was, let's go into the middle of the sea and drown. That wasn't the plan. That wasn't Jesus' plan. He was not telling them, go in the middle of the lake, this is it for you. He's saying, let's go, we are crossing over to the other side. Understand this, that if Jesus is leading you and if Jesus is in your boat, He will get you there. If it's His will, His will was, let's go to the other side. We're going somewhere. It may be stormy in the middle, but that's okay. We didn't get in this boat to sink. We got in this boat to get somewhere. And if Jesus is leading you in your life, and you're hearing His voice, and you're walking according to what He has told you, and He is with you, I promise you, you're going to get there. You may feel like you're about to tip over and capsize. You may feel like the storms around you are whipping around and crazy. Every sail may be shredded, but I promise you, if Jesus said it, and He's with you, you're going to get there. Amen? No obstacle can stop. The disciples did not quite understand Jesus' authority in this moment. They followed Him. They loved Him. They loved hearing Him teach. It was wonderful. But they didn't get at that point that even creation obeys Jesus. Therefore, there is nothing... We sang that song this morning, like, you cannot be stopped. Right? We sang that in praise this morning for the 20% of you that were here for our first song this morning. That's a little plug to get to church on time. Alright, so we sang this song. You cannot be stopped because there is no obstacle that can stop what God wants to accomplish in your life. Even the wind and the waves, all of creation obeys Him. So be led by Jesus, and you can be assured of arrival. Now listen, if you go your own way, and you're off doing your own thing without Him, then there's nobody with you, there's no word and voice of authority to rebuke the storms in your life. Don't be caught out in the storm without Jesus. You hear what I'm saying? Make today the day that you choose to follow His leading, and make today be the day that you ensure that He is always in the boat with you. Right? If He says, let's go over there, alright Jesus, let's go together. Right? And you've got that authority, that even the wind and the waves obey Him. So we move on, it says in verse 37, a furious squall came up and the waves broke over the boat so that it was nearly swamped. Now, the Bible describes this as a furious squall. It's not just a little rain. It's not just a little windy out. This squall made water break over the boat. It was a big old storm, not just a regular thunderstorm. Right? It was something of great magnitude that threatened the safe passage of their boat. I even read, and some scholars believe that there was actually an earthquake taking place. It was that kind of a storm where there was an earthquake taking place under the lake just based on the wording that is used here in this scripture. I don't know if that's true, but that would be one heck of a storm. That would be one heck of tsunami-type waves that would be coming up. Now, you'll notice in the previous verse it says that there were other boats with Jesus. We just read that, right? There were other boats that were in the water. So there were other boats with them. You know what this means? That other people were experiencing exactly the same thing that they were experiencing. They weren't alone in the lake. They were on their boat. There were other boats around. They were all being affected by this storm. And so when Jesus calmed the storm, it wasn't just for the disciples. Every other boat that was on the lake in that moment, the storm calmed for them as well. And it affected them. Can I tell you this? Your life, when you live your life with Jesus, and you begin to walk in victory over the storms of life, when you have faith in the authority of Jesus Christ and you're seeing victory taking place in your life, it's going to affect other people around you. It's going to have an impact. It's going to affect your family. It's going to affect your friends. It's going to affect your co-workers. It's going to affect your church family, one another. When your boat goes up, we all get to go up with you. When there's victory, it affects the people in your life. It could affect just somebody that's going through the same situation you just went through. And now you have an opportunity to affect their life for the glory of God. Now we move on to verse 38, and it says, Jesus was in the stern sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke Him and said to Him, Teacher, don't you care if we drown? Now Jesus was asleep on a cushion. The man travels with a pillow. You've got to just commend Jesus for that, right? The dude knew when he's tired, he wants to sleep, and he wanted to sleep on something soft. He traveled with a pillow. But why was Jesus asleep in the bottom of the boat? Well, I'll say this. The Bible tells us that it was Jesus' custom to get up early. He was somebody that used to get up early. Now if He waited to get up when everybody else's alarm clock was going off, it was going to be all, how do you take your coffee, Jesus? How do you want your eggs, Jesus? Who's the greatest in the kingdom, Jesus? And He would not have a moment of peace to Himself. So His custom was to get up early in the morning before everybody else, before the sun even came up, to be alone with His Father. To talk to God. To get His mind and His heart. First thing, to get His mind and His heart centered on things above and about the will of His Father. And so He gets up early and you wonder where this authority comes from. It's from being with God. Right? But He gets up early and He has the will of the Father, but then He goes and He teaches and He gives of Himself all day and He's teaching and He's doing miracles. And then finally, He gets a moment to get on a boat and to get some sleep. He was tired. He had a long day because He was spent doing the business of the Father. Now listen, we can learn something very, very simple from something as simple as Jesus being asleep in the boat. And the question I have to ask you is is your time with God important enough to you that you'll lose sleep over it? Are you spending yourself on being about His business? Is that why you're exhausted at the end of the day? Because you were up early, spending time with God, getting your heart and your mind centered, and then throughout the day it was all about Him and His glory and His business and what He's called you to do? Or are we exhausted because we stayed up late, binge-watching Better Call Saul? Are we exhausted because we did everything else besides spend time with our Father and be about His business? There's something that we can learn about the fact that Jesus slept when He could because He was tired going about doing the Father's business. And so, maybe we ought to re-evaluate ourselves and say, how am I spending my time? And is it important for me to spend time with the Lord? Amen? So let's go to the Matthew account of the same story because I want to get a sense of Jesus' demeanor when the disciples wake Him up. And it says this in Matthew 8, verse 26. It says, He replied, you of little faith, why are you so afraid? Then He got up and He rebuked the wind and the waves and it was completely calm. Now this word, rebuke, the Greek word epitomeo in the Greek, it carries this connotation to it and it's an expression of disapproval like when you rebuke somebody, you express your disapproval. But this was more of an understanding of the value between the rebuker and the rebukee. It was like a power, like a positioning, that kind of a rebuke that was taking place. Therefore, to exercise authority, this rebuke was Him exercising authority in order to cause a subordinate to come into submission or to calm down. That's what He was doing here. When He rebuked the wind and the waves, He said, quiet. Be still. Kind of like you talk to your children when they're acting up and they're getting loud. And you're like, let's quiet. No, calm down. Sit right here. Right? You rebuke them and you bring them into a place of submission. Jesus is the Creator. The wind and the waves are like His kids. Right? He made that. He made them to be big and powerful and strong. And they were acting up. And He needed to put them in their place. Now this is important. Because... Alright, think about this. If you're here in the church and somebody else's kid starts acting up, that's not really your place to rebuke them unless you have the authority of that parent. Right? So the kids that are upstairs with our children's ministry or the kids that are over in True Town Kids, the young ones, right? If they're acting up, the people in charge have the authority to rebuke them and to put them in their place and to make sure they come into submission and obedience. So you... Listen, understand this. The Spirit of Christ dwells in you. If you have said yes to Jesus, the Spirit of Christ dwells in you. So it is not out of line for you to rebuke the wind and the waves. It's not out of line for you to get up on block party day and say, oh, the rain's coming in. Let me pray. Let's begin to speak to the rain and tell it to hold off. It's not out of line. You can do that. Because it's His authority. And yeah, He created the wind and the waves, but He has given you that authority. He dwells in you. Right? So you can rebuke His kids. His creation. Right? And so, it's His authority, but He lends it to us to use because we are His hands and we are His feet on the earth. That's why we can pray for people. That's why we can believe in Jesus' name. We can believe for people to be healed. We can believe for miracles. So let's just recap this a little bit. We're going to close up here. Jesus is asleep during a torrential, life-threatening storm. The disciples are freaking out. All hope was lost. And they are convinced that they're going down with a ship and they're going to drown. They've already hoisted the mainsail. They've already lifted anchor. They've tacked and jibed and worked the rigging. I have no idea what any of those things mean. But they did all of that stuff to no use. And Jesus wakes up. We read it, right? He replied, You of little faith, why are you so afraid? Like, He gets up and He's going, What? A storm? It's like, oh brother, what are you all freaking out about? Like, that's His demeanor as He wakes up. He's probably a little annoyed that He got woken up out of His deep sleep. But He's like, oh, this is what all the hubbub is about? A storm? Like, I don't see a problem here. Didn't I say we're going to the other side? Didn't I tell you? Let's go to the other side? Why are you all freaking out like this? Unfortunately, there's so many of us that live our lives this way. The storms of life come. The winds blow. The water covers their boat and they're freaking out. And for many people, Jesus is not asleep in their boat. Jesus is not there. They're not traveling with Jesus. Sometimes they make it through. Sometimes life comes crashing down all around them. But what they didn't have was the promise of Jesus and the authority of Jesus working for them, because they weren't in relationship with Jesus. And it's become sad. I mean, I know for myself, when I see people struggling and they refuse to turn to the One. They refuse to be in relationship with the One that can heal, that can save, that can provide, that has power over the wind and the waves. And they're just trying to navigate that thing by themselves. You almost feel bad for them. And you try to get something over to them that you need Jesus. This is why you need Jesus. So is Jesus in your boat? Is He really in your boat? The disciples, they were still freaking out. They didn't quite understand the power that was asleep in the bottom of that boat. They didn't quite know it yet. But we have the benefit of knowing. We've read all the stories of healing, of miracles. We've read about how we rose from the dead, how we calmed the wind and the waves, how we cursed a fig tree and it died. We see the power that Jesus has. And we ought to not be freaking out like the disciples when we go through stuff. Right? Jesus, if He's in your boat, you're going to get there. But there's a reason that Jesus was so unsettled. Because He had a close relationship with His Father. A deep abiding relationship and it gave Him hope and it gave Him peace and it gave Him certainty in the dangerous, uncertain moments of life. You know, Jesus was still getting knocked around in that boat just like the disciples. But His response was, Why are you so afraid? Come on. He understood the power and He had a close relationship with His Father. And this type of certainty in the midst of these types of storms only comes when we are in proper relationship with God through Jesus Christ. And the last thing that it says here in Mark 4, this story, it says they were terrified and they asked each other, they said, Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey Him. They asked the question, Who is this? Who is this guy? Well, let me tell you who this guy is. This is the Son of God. This is God. The One who came to us as a human and showed us the heart of God. The One who willingly sacrificed Himself on a cross so that our sins could be forgiven and removed. And if not for this sacrifice, every single one of us would be destined to an eternity apart from Him. An eternity in hell. And it doesn't matter. You know, we bought into this idea that we're good with God as long as we're good on earth. But it doesn't matter how good we think we are. It doesn't matter. We've all broken God's law. At some point in our lives, we have all broken God's law. Whether through a little lie, or through a lustful thought, or a moment of selfishness, or through something heinous that we did. At one point, we have all broken God's law. And the Bible tells us this, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Every single one of us. It doesn't matter how good you might be. How good you might think you are. Jesus even said there's no one that's good. Not good enough to be in right relationship with God. We can't do it. We have to have Jesus. This is why we call it being saved. We call it being saved because without Him, we are destined to eternity. Eternity. Forever. Without God. That's what we're destined for. But with Him, we're saved from that. We're saved from our sin. We're saved from our selfishness. It no longer condemns us. That lie, that lustful thought, that moment of anger, whatever it is, no longer condemns you. It no longer becomes the conviction that leads you to eternity without Christ. He takes that away. He saves us. And we all need to be rescued from that sin. They ask the question, Who is this? Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Listen, it's a great, great encouraging word to know that Jesus is with us and He's leading us and He's going to get us to where we're going. And that's great. That's great encouragement. But if you're not with Jesus, if you have not made Jesus your Lord and your Savior and placed your faith in Jesus Christ, none of this matters. None of that story applies to you. The first thing you need to do is get your heart right with Him and get to a place where you're walking in the same salvation that the rest of us are. And that rescue only comes through Jesus Christ, the Son of God. That's what kind of man this is. The one that if we place our faith in Him, He gives us access to His Father. He gives us His Spirit to live in us. And He promises to be with us for the remainder of our lives. He promises to be in the boat with us if we continue to walk with Him. And then He ensures us eternal life with Him where no sin that you've ever committed can be held against you. And so I'm going to ask the question, I'm going to ask you to bow your heads and close your eyes. And if you're here in this room today, maybe you've been coming to church for years and you've never even really made a decision to follow Christ, you're just a good church attender. Or if you're here for the first time and the Gospel is new to you, or you've been in relationship with Jesus but you've kind of wandered away, today is the day for you to enter into that relationship, to get Jesus into your boat today. Not for what He can do, not just so that He can calm the storms of life, but so that you can be saved from an eternity without Him. So that your sins no longer are held against you. So that you are free and can walk in that freedom that comes with knowing Jesus. And so with our heads bowed and our eyes closed, I'm going to just ask the question, do you need to make a decision to follow Christ today? Do you need to say yes to Jesus? Do you need to place your faith and your trust in Him so that your sins can be removed? So that you can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if you were to leave this place today, and God forbid something happens to you, that if you were to lose your life, that you know exactly where you're going. Where you can lead your family and your friends into a relationship with Jesus and ensure that they will have eternal life as well. God, I pray, God, that every one of us in this room today, that we'll invite you into the boat. That we won't leave you all on the shore and go off in our own way and do our own thing. But Lord, if we say that we're in relationship with You, that we truly are in relationship with You, that we're listening, that we're obeying God, that we're walking with You, Lord. Knowing, God, that the storms of life, we're not going to drown. Because if You said go, we're going to get there. I thank You, Lord Jesus. I thank You for Your goodness. I thank You for a reminder, Lord God, that we've got to have You in the boat with us. We can't be going out and doing this on our own. We've got to have You in the boat with us. Thank you for listening to Elevate. We hope this message encouraged, inspired, and challenged you. Authentic Life Church is located at 3750 Michael Boulevard in Mobile, Alabama. Visit our website, AuthenticLife.tv for more information about Authentic Life Church, to find out what we have going on, or to make a donation. You can also find us on Facebook. We'd love for you to join us on Sundays at 10 a.m. for our weekend service. We have excellent children's, nursery, and youth programs, so bring the family. For Pastor John DeQuatro, I'm Scott Chestnut. Thanks again for listening, and God bless you.