Authority Over The Seas

I. Authority Over Nature

II. Disputes about the authority of Jesus

A. Not long after Jesus chose His disciples he started to receive challenges to His authority

1. The Jewish leaders challenged Jesus’ authority
   • In Mark 3:22-30, the scribes and the Pharisees didn’t doubt that Jesus could cast out demons but attributed the power to Beelzebul, the prince of demons.
   • In Mark 2 the Pharisees challenged Jesus about his reverence to the Sabbath
2. In Mark 2 the people questioned Jesus why his disciples did not fast like the Pharisees and John’s disciples.
3. In Luke 7, John the Baptist, who baptized Jesus and saw the accompanying heavenly manifestation, sent his disciples to Jesus asking “are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” To which Jesus commended His teaching, signs, and good works.
4. Matthew, Mark, and Luke record His mother and brothers wanting to speak with Jesus but He refused saying His followers were His mothers and brothers. Some have suggested that since John 7:5 says that His brothers did not believe in Him, that perhaps they might have been there to quiet Him. We don’t know.

B. However, many heard Jesus and recognized the authority of His words

1. Matthew 7:28-29 – He taught with authority , not as the scribes
2. Matthew 8:5-13 – the Centurion recognized Jesus authority in the ability to heal his servant at a distance
3. As noted above, the demons even obeyed the rebuke of Jesus
4. The gospels refer to the miracles as signs, events pointing to some important message from God.

C. There is a miracle that demonstrates the great power and authority of Jesus recorded in the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke: The calming of the sea

III. Comparing the texts (Read the texts first)

A. In Mark and Luke Jesus instructed his disciples to get into the boat and go over to the other side.

1. Mark includes an interesting phrase “they took Him in the boat just as he was”.
2. The Holman Christian Standard Bible says, “So they left the crowd and took Him along since He was already in the boat.” (which follows Matthew 8:23: “And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him.”

B. Mark observes that other boats followed them

C. The boat was being swamped and filled with water and Luke adds that they were in danger.

D. All say that Jesus was sleeping but Mark adds that it was on a cushion in the stern (back)

E. The panic responses of the disciples

1. Matthew: “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.” (a salvation appeal)
2. Mark: “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” (are you not concerned about our danger?)
3. Luke: “Master, Master, we are perishing!” (loss of hope without the intervention of Jesus)

F. The response of Jesus to the storm

1. Matthew: Jesus rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.
2. Mark: Jesus rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.

G. The response of the apostles, “Who then is this, [What sort of man – Matt.] that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?”

H. The answer to the disciples’ question is profound.

1. Rebuke is an interesting word as Jesus is giving a verbal command to the elements of nature that are not conscious or living in the sense that we are.
   • In Luke 4:39 Jesus rebuked a fever and it left Simon’s mother-in-law.
   • In Matthew 21, Jesus gave a verbal rebuke to an unfruitful fig tree and it withered away.
   • It is important to recognize that Jesus has power over the natural world, but this miracle is different as the sign points to something even greater.
2. The response of the seas to Jesus’s verbal commands is a clear demonstration that He is God.
   • Genesis 1:1, 6-10 – commanding the creation and ordering of the seas
   • Job 38:8-11 – God’s verbal command that limited the sea at creation
   • Psalm 104:5-9 – Note it is God’s “rebuke” of the sea that reveals the land
   • Jesus not only asserts His ability to control nature, but commanding and rebuking the sea clearly demonstrates that Jesus has the power of God exhibited at Creation.
   • Simply stated, His ability to rebuke the sea proved that He was God – It confirmed His authority

IV. Secondary but important lesson from this event with the apostles

A. Jesus told the disciples to begin a journey with Him in which they would encounter grave danger.

B. Jesus allowed them to endure a fierce tempest in which they feared for their lives.

1. Each gospel records how Jesus questioned the apostles’ response to the storm:
   • Matthew: “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?”
   • Mark: “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?”
   • Luke: “Where is your faith?”
2. Jesus asks why they didn’t have courage; why they didn’t have some faith that, because He was with them, everything would work out.
   • As the song “Master The Tempest is Raging” asks, could the seas possibly swallow the Master of Ocean and Earth and Skies?
   • If they were in the presence of Jesus, He would care for them; they needed to trust that.

C. God doesn’t promise a life free from pain, toil, and strife but promises to be with us as we endure and learn from the trials, and to save us eternally.

1. 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 – Paul’s thorn in the flesh was treated with the grace of Jesus
2. 2 Corinthians 4:7-17 – endurance with Jesus
3. 2 Thessalonians 1:5-12 – continue doing good works and glorifying God despite afflictions
4. Romans 8:31-39 – He who controls creation will be with us
5. Perhaps the trial that we endure, persecution we face, or affliction seems great and we ask like the Psalmist and the apostles, “where are you God? Do you not care what is happening to us?”
   • Might Jesus ask, “Why are you afraid? Do you not have faith? I am here.”
   • God’s restraint is to allow our faith to grow, James 1:2-4
   • Luke 18:1-8 – When Jesus comes will he find faith in you and me?
6. The master of ocean and earth and skies, Jesus Christ, our God, can calm the strongest tempest or give us the strength to endure the storm.