Great Sermon Part II

Click here to listen to this great sermon by Dr. David Jeremiah

The second day he talked about how God gives us storm advisories or storm warnings in the Bible.

The disciples were in the storm not because they did something wrong, but because they did something right. They were obeying Jesus. Just because we are going through a trial it doesn't mean that God is punishing us. Sometimes we are right where he wants us to be. He wants to take us to another level of faith and confidence in Him.

Dr. Jeremiah cautioned people to not ever suggest that it's because there's something evil in someones life that they are having problems.

In Peter it says something to the effect of "Don't consider it strange when you have trials". (I Peter 4:12)

Jesus was at peace while the disciples were going to pieces.

There are lots of hymns about storms and not sinking. Nobody likes to sing them anymore because they are not "happy" songs.

3. God's word announces the Savior is on board.

4. The ship is in good hands.

Psalm 89:9

9You rule the swelling of the sea; When its waves rise, You still them.

He didn't change the ship, but He changed the sea.

If he were just a good man, He couldn't do that. This shows us He is God. As a man, Jesus was asleep in the boat. When he was awake, he was God and stilled the storm.

Some other examples: As a man, Jesus cried for Lazarus. As God he raised him up from the dead. As a man He was baptized by John, as God we was taken up into Heaven afterwards and God said "This is my son in who I am well pleased".

He won't allow the storms to sink you.

5. God's word allows us a glimpse of the master plan.

Why did Jesus let them go through the storm? Notice that he calmed the storm as soon as they cried out to him for help. Do we cry out to God during our storms or do we try to handle it on our own first? Storms show us our dependence on God. They should get our focus on the eternal purpose.

When you look at the storm, you're afraid. When you look at the Savior you find peace. Where is your focus?

New Glasses

This past Sunday we had a guest speaker at our church. He spoke of how when he was in the third grade he had to get glasses. He showed before and after pictures on the screen at the front of the church. In the before picture, he was a cute little kid and in the after picture, he had these big brown glasses and was wearing a very dated shirt with pointed collars buttoned all the way up.

His sermon was about God correcting our spiritual vision. He talked about how when he was young he thought that the more he studied about God the more he would understand Him and know Him. Yet even after seminar and years of study (he's getting ready to go to school for his doctorate), he feels he knows less than he did before. He said that this is because God is so big that we can't even begin to learn all about him. The more we learn, the more we see that there is even more to God than we thought before. Our human minds can not comprehend Him. That is the very nature of God. If we could completely understand him, he wouldn't be God.

He said this, "Getting glasses, I didn't care how I looked, only that I could see more clearly".

I want God to work on my spiritual sight. I want to "see" things as He sees them. I want to look at things in an eternal light. Life on earth is temporary. I don't care how I look to the rest of the world either. Maybe I'll look like a "geek" as the pastor did in his school picture. All I care about is "seeing" better.

I feel my sight getting better every day. I'm sure one of the reasons for this is because I have gotten back into my daily Bible reading. It's a struggle sometimes, but when I make the effort to get up a little earlier and start my day off with that, everything goes much smoother and I have a much better perspective.