The Creation Hears and Obeys

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I don't know exactly what the schedule is. Right now the kids are out playing at Covenant Youth Junior Camp, our preteen camp. I think Cam and Sarah have reached the point of time during camp where they're just fully funded by C4 and Red Bull. And so I think they will probably sleep all next week. And they've done a fantastic job.

I don't remember exactly how many kids, but somewhere upwards of around 100 kids have come from all over, whether it' from our congregation or from other places for the week and then again for the weekend to be able to do that. I know some camps do week long preteen camps and man, may God bless them and keep them. You know, when you start to get those 10 year olds who've never really left home before and you put them for a couple of nights away with people who aren't their mom and dad, that's a lot. That's a spiritual gift in and of itself. And so kudos to the days and to the Wallaces and all the other people that are out there.

Monica Sykes, a lot of you didn't know Matthew Sykes kind of hides behind the soundboard most week. But Matthew Sykes also runs all of our wreck for our camp as well. Takes it very seriously. So I would have loved to see what he was like in high school sports as well. But they've had a fantastic week.

The weather has been great out there, it's been nice and hot and we even have some of that Tennessee humidity just to make them remember what it was like in the good old days of church camp. And so it's been great. My wife and I have been driving back and forth almost every day and checking in with them, checking in on the food and that kind of stuff. And they have just done a phenomenal job. And so I am super blessed that after, let's see, 2008 was when I started.

I have officially retired from youth camp responsibilities. And it feels good. It feels really good. I'm not going to lie. If this is what it was like for my parents, my grandparents, to get the gold watch when they retired, you know, praise God, like I am no longer in shape enough to be able to keep up with the youth camp.

I am no longer. I don't have the stamina. I'm standing here and I'm not moving much right now. Cause my feet hurt, my ankles hurt and I'm not running the camp. Like I literally popped in for a couple hours and went home to my bed.

So we're gonna continue on the Kingdom in Action series this week, and we're gonna look at Matthew, chapter 8, 23, 27. Last week we looked at the relevancy of the prophecy in Daniel about the terminology of the Son of Man and how Matthew for the first time had used that title to reference who Jesus was. One who was given all authority, all dominion and all power over creation and of the earth. We talked a little bit about how there's a lot of emphasis on, from the prophetic, about timelines, futuristic things. A lot of times we.

That that has to do with doom and gloom. It has to do with almost a fear that's there. And yet most prophecy, when done in context, is. Is not about fear. Most prophecy is done about the hope of a coming salvation, of a savior, of one who.

Who would come, who would do the things that we've not been capable of doing. Even in the garden. When we made the decision to go our way versus Yahweh's way, we also saw that Jesus referenced the foxes. And we learned about the connection of foxes and the destruction and the rebuilding of the temple that we saw in Lamentations. And we also saw in the prophecy of Zechariah.

I believe it was chapter 14. I don't have that specific reference this week in my notes, but I believe it was Zechariah 14 and how it was at least inferred. When Jesus is having this comment, not only did he not have a home, but ultimately the home that had been built for centuries for the messianic king, the holy of Holies, where the Ruach Hakodesh, the spirit of the Lord, Yahweh, Lord God, Hashem Adonai, whatever title you want to use, would have fallen and dwelt in that place. That there is at least an inference that even that house in that place could not, nor would be the dwelling place of this Son of Man. And we saw how important that was, even into Rabbi Akiva's writings and some of the other Jewish sages, that the concept of foxes on the Temple Mount normally led to both the destruction and the possibility of the rebuilding.

This actually became even more popular. I believe it was in 2023, when there was multiple reports of the more modern Temple Mount of foxes running and being seen in their presence on the Temple Mount in Israel. We read about the interactions with Jesus disciples who asked to bury their dad before that they departed. And we saw how Jesus had specified that this mission he was on had no time for mourning for those whose lives were over. But he wanted and was asking with an invitation to stay on mission for those who still had hope, for those who were still alive.

We saw how Jesus calling once again was to go give stay on mission under the authority which was the authority that was shown all throughout the Torah and the prophets. Yet the Torah, observant 1st century individuals for the most part had missed the fact that that one they were waiting for was now in their midst. Jesus salvation, teaching and power required a person to make a choice. It was a choice to follow him. In those verses we also unpack a lot of various prophetic references, potential ramifications, and how culture causes us to come into conflict so many times with what is culturally appropriate versus what Jesus has called us to do and our temptations and our thoughts and our tasks and in our trials.

At the beginning of all of that, all of that stuff that we unpacked last week, there was some one simple command, one simple request, go to the other side of the lake. And in all those verses and unpacking all of that stuff, we kind of lost sight of. The whole reason why they got there was because Jesus asked them to move. He asked them to go. And after he asked them to go, one said, I'll go wherever.

One said, let me go bury my dad. There was excuses, there was things that were there. None of us do that I understand this is just what we read about in the Bible as a reminder of why we don't do that. But in the beginning of that passage was a simple command. Let's go to the other side of the lake.

And today that's where we pick up with, go over to the other side of the sea. Matthew chapter 8, verses 23 says, and when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea. And so that boat was being swamped by the waves, but he was asleep.

Jesus knows how to bring peace. We were having a conversation with the Lopez's the other night while we were at softball practice about long car rides. They're getting ready to take a long car ride back to the city where I was born, the city where my wife and I spent many, many years of our life. And they were talking about how like, I think it was Monica who said, with Abijah now, like they could split up the drive, you know, they have a couple hours here, a couple hours there's. And just being honest, I mean, nobody said I'm not a transparent person.

Some people say maybe I need to be less transparent. But I stated, I don't let my wife drive. When we're in the car. She scares me. 21 hours, 23 hours, it doesn't matter.

I'm manning up, I'm gonna man up, I'll pay for it afterwards, but I'm manning up and I'm driving that whole place. And I talked about how efficient we had gotten on our travels. Whether it was the 23 hour trip to the east coast when we were going for a Messiah meetings, or it's the 14 hour drive back to Ohio, or now we've broken up our trip to Florida to where we only go, we only go about eight hours or so and stay with some friends overnight. But ultimately I would rather man it up, toughen it out than to allow my wife to drive. And I explained why.

Maybe it's control, most likely control, maybe it's because I value life. Who knows? But I'm not sleeping in the passenger side while my wife is driving. Every once in a while you hear the rumble strip or something like that, and each moment is that feeling of like, oh, hey, we're gonna die. And so Jesus, however, Jesus is in a boat, sound asleep, and the boat's getting tossed.

We're talking about, I can't sleep in the front seat if I don't hear the turn signal in the proper amount of time to switch lanes. This is nothing in comparison to being on a small boat. They were not on a Carnival Cruise ship. Jesus did not tell them, hey, let's get on the Odyssey boat. And they were down in the bar having drinks and eating the best tilapia.

That wasn't what's happening. They were getting on a smaller boat and they were going across the sea. So if there is a storm that's tossing that boat to and from that, then this is big. And for anybody who's been into Israel and been into that place, like a little scary.

Jesus is sound asleep.

Jesus proves, just in another simple way why he's a better man than me.

Yet we understand from the last three weeks we've interwoven foundational pieces into the Gospel of Matthew. Reading any of the Gospels without understanding the historical context that's there leaves a lot to be desired because you can make up a lot of things, you can make a lot of words. You can. Let me put it this way. You can make the Bible say anything you want the Bible to say, just like any other book.

You can take it, you can twist it, you can contort it, you can put it into a different era, you can put it into a different timeline. A lot of people do that.

If you want to fully understand what it is God is trying to tell you or show you, you have to try to remember and put the Bible into the context of when it was being taught, and then allow the Holy Spirit to reveal how that should impact you today. So we talked about this holiness code in Leviticus, Matthew, back to Leviticus. We talked about the creation story. We talked about how the Bible is constantly dealing with a term Brent loves to use all the time, a juxtaposition. There's a constant wrestling of two natures.

It's camp time. There's two natures that beat within my breast. One is evil and one is blessed. One I love, one I hate. It's the one I feed that will dominate.

There's two natures inside of us. One is blessed, one we hate. We hate the one that causes us to do stupid stuff. We hate the one that causes us to receive the curses and be apart from God. But it's the one we feed that will dominate our life.

That's a good old 2008 on Brent ism from all of our summer youth camps, but it's very true. It's interwoven into this concept, the concept of two natures. In this world, there is a nature that is blessed, that is the spirit of God, and there is a nature that is opposed to God. We call them good and evil. Yet many of the scholars and I actually am learning to see more of scripture through this lens and is not necessarily good or evil.

My grandfather, to my knowledge, never professed that Jesus was his salvation. But I remember having many conversations with him where he said, I believe I'm a good person. I don't steal from people. I don't kill people. I try to love people.

I try to do right by them. If I see somebody with a need, I try to do things. He did a lot of things that Jesus, that Moses talked about, but he didn't believe Jesus was his salvation. And so a lot of times we get ourselves wrapped up with good and evil. Well, what is good in America today is not necessarily the same as what was considered good in America 30 years ago.

Nobody has an overwhelming backlash in America when students in public schools talk back, curse out, and sometimes physically assault teachers. Small percentage of America says that's unright. That's not okay. It used to be if that happened, everybody and their sister, the teacher, the parent, the principal, the town, the pastor, they're all bringing their belts and like, all right, we're going to take care of this. And it never happened again.

So good and evil are Sliding scales dependent upon which metrics you want to use. And you can use metrics that aren't the Bible to say, well, I'm a good person. I didn't cheat on my spouse, I didn't beat up my brother.

This is why every family needs to have a standard that is biblically based on what it looks like in your household. Why? Because it's chaos versus order. That's really what's at stake in the world. It's not necessarily good versus evil.

Order is God. God is always speaking order. The creation story, the Spirit hovered over the water. There was a vast chaos in the world. Not the chaos that we would think of, but a chaos in general.

The Holy Spirit spoke into existence with the Father and the world was formed. That same order took the chaos of the floodwaters and said, you can go all these places, but you cannot go here. And thus Noah, his family, the animals, were saved in the Leviticus time frame, in that entire setup of the first century. I want you to understand some context that maybe you're aware of, maybe you're not. But I think it's important as we continue to dive into these concepts.

Every culture throughout biblical time had a temple.

Every culture had gods.

Every culture had some sort of priesthood, some sort of priesthood. Some of them were the little druid men from like Star wars looking thing. And some of them were, you know, the Egyptian gods where they had the shaved heads and then they have like, you've seen images of them, you know, like, they have like all kinds of imagery. But there was priests and there was gods. There was dietary laws.

We call them delicacies now. Well, each culture has a delicacy, but there was dietary laws. There was things that were considered. This is what you eat. This is not what you eat in Egypt or in Babylon or in Persia or in the Jewish culture or whatever.

They had dietary laws, they had festivals.

This is historical information. They had festivals. They had festivals at various different times. And yes, they even had tassels, you know, those tzitzio that we wear, you know, one of the first things we do as Christians and we start to come into understanding more of the Hebraic lens of who our Jewish Messiah is. One of the first things people get out of Leviticus and they go, oh, well, we have to wear the tassels.

And that sets us apart. Every culture that was around them was wearing tassels and fringes too. What set them apart was that there was a blue cord in their tassels versus the color of other people. What set Them apart was not that they had a temple and nobody else had a temple. It was the chaos of their temple versus the order of God in his temple.

It was the chaos of their priesthood or their sacrificial system. This is where we get in baal, where we get that there was child sacrifices and, and things like this. It was God bringing order to the things that they saw around them so that they could what, reflect his nature and reflect his character to those around Him. That's what being set apart was. It wasn't that you put tassels on your garment and nobody else wore tassels.

Everybody for the most part in culturally wore some form of tassels. It wasn't that you had a temple or that you had a priesthood or that you had dietary laws. Everybody had it. It was that these things were a reflection of the Creator, whereas the others were reflections of the creation. One is holy and one is not.

One is pure and one is not.

And all throughout Scripture we see the adversary and creation attempt to bring chaos, sometimes unknowingly attempt to bring chaos into the world. And God is attempting to take the chaos we present to the world and bring it to order. For my Pentecostal individuals, my assembly of God, my lovers of the Holy Spirit, the offices and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. How do you know it's the Holy Spirit? It brings order.

Somebody stands up in a congregation and they're like, want to buy a Honda? And everybody looks around and they're like, what, what, what's happening? It can be chaotic. This is why it says, especially from a public standpoint, there should be one who is then given the interpretation to bring the order in the public area. If somebody stands up and just speaks in tongues, it creates potentially chaos around us.

Well, this is a positive thing, right? The Lord has given tongues for the edification of the body. Every spiritual gift has been given for the edification and the building up of the body.

So we're not even talking about murder, stealing, all these bad, icky things none of us would ever do. Everything in life is weighed against the chaos of the adversary in this world versus God establishing his order. Where do we see that? Oh, the Israelites disobey God. There's an apocalyptic encounter where the prophets get a calling that says, hey, look, you need to kind of get back in line.

You're kind of out of line, like, come on back. They don't listen. They get taken into captivity. Chaos. And then God provides a way to bring them back with order.

And then what do they do? Guys, this is why I don't expect anybody in this room to be perfect or have a problem. And I hope you don't. Me either. Literally everything in the Bible is about the Israelites doing good, screwing it up, doing good, screwing it up.

God adjusting them, screwing it up, doing good, screwing it up, doing good. It's just a cycle of trying to create order in the midst of chaos.

Almost every command in the Bible was similar to some other cultures. Law or their code or their moral code. We see this in the Code of Hammurabi, that there was laws and there was morals and there was things. Society. If you don't have those real quick.

When I came back to my faith in Jesus, we were a part of a corner of Christianity that predominantly liked home fellowship. There was this whole emphasis on the home, and it was like, look, there's only a plurality of leadership in the Bible, and that's the only way scripturally you can be in line. And so we're going to go to a home and we're going to have no rules. There was feast of tabernacles, gatherings that did that. Guess what?

They all have rules and they all have leaders. Now why? Because if you don't have a standard of practice, then people's expectations bump up against each other and you end up having conflict, chaos. And there has to be order. How do you know it's the Holy Spirit?

It brings order. It doesn't bring chaos. How do you know it's either your spirit or an opposing spirit of God? It brings chaos.

It's honestly that simple. We don't have to go into the Lexicon and pull out every verse where it mentions this, this, or this. The basic level of discernment is if it brings order, it's of God. If it brings chaos, it's not of Him. Step back and let the Holy Spirit add to your wisdom and your discernment.

Yet God was doing in Leviticus the things that only he could. He was taking a moral code, he was taking a culture, he was taking an ethics. And he was providing a pathway back to reflect his nature and his character. That's why I love to call Leviticus the Holiness Code. It wasn't that it separated them or it was new.

All these things existed. It was no longer are we reflecting creation's nature. Now we are reflecting God's nature to creation. It's just kind of flipping the script upside down in that time frame, from slaves to bondservants, so to speak. Yet In Matthew, chapter 8, verses 23, we see chaos Meets order again with Jesus sleeping on a boat while a storm in the waters is causing this ship to be tossed to and frozen.

It's poetic that the perfect order of Jesus was in peace in the bottom of the boat while everything around him seemed to be chaotic. We talk about that. We give a lot of credit to those people. Whether it's sports or it's political figures or whatever. We're like, man, the basketball game was super chaotic, but SGA was just.

He was just stable the whole way and they were able to bring home the trophy or, oh, man, the world is in constant conflict, but this one leader is able to be stable in that moment. And we give a lot of accolades to the things that happen in the physical realm, but we have to understand that all of creation was operating in cycles of chaos. Here comes perfect order in Jesus Christ. Yeshua Hamashiach and we just kind of glance over that sometimes. That's way more revolutionary than Tyrese Halliburton hitting a three pointer to win a game in a chaotic moment.

That's way more revolutionary than some world leader being able to keep World War three from happening. This is all creation, all chaos, all things. It's not isolated to one geopolitical thing.

Matthew continues and says, and they went and they woke him up. If I was Jesus and I was at perfect peace and everybody else was there, and this is why I'm not Jesus, I'd have been mad. I've been like, I don't care that the ship is tossed to and fro. That seems to be your problem. I was sleeping just fine.

Jesus is better than me. They say, save us, Lord, we are perishing. And he said to them, why are you afraid? Oh, you of little faith?

That passionate, loving savior got snippy. He could have stopped Brent. Why are you afraid? That would have been sufficient. Why are you afraid, Brant?

I was sleeping. Why can't you come put a cot down over here and sleep with me? Not only does he ask, why are you afraid? Then he. He makes a statement.

He doesn't say, you lack faith or you should have more faith. He goes, no, you don't have faith. You have little faith. Little faith?

Have you not learned? We're eight chapters into the story here. I've healed people, cast out demons, Given all these things, you've recognized a special authority and power. And you still have little faith that somehow, while I'm sitting on this little dinghy out in the middle of the water, we're going to die. Don't you think I wouldn't Be sleeping.

But he's gracious and he's compassionate and he continues to lead in a way that shows that he is way better than most of humanity. The disciples and the others were afraid. They thought they were going to die. Some of them were fishermen. I'm guessing this was not the first time that they found themselves in a little bit of a dust up on the sea.

Just guessing. I don't know that for a fact, but it seems to be logical that this is not the first time that they found themselves maybe in some tough waters. Some of us have been in these types of situations that Jesus awakes and asks, why do you fear? A lot of times when we're talking to our friends or our loved ones or whatever and we're in a tough situation, like why is that such a big deal? Most of the time we get offended by that.

Well, you don't fully understand.

And then God tells them that their fear is from a lack of faith. Yet these people, of all people, these people knew that God had come to their ancestors. Whether it was on a mountain, whether it was in a burning bush, whether it was the tabernacle that they literally tore down, picked up and moved, whether it was the temple, whether it was through the prophets. God had consistently come to their forefathers, to their ancestors, to warn them that chaos in their life will bring their death, but walking in the order of God will bring life. And yet God has never failed that covenant.

They would know that more than anybody. God has never failed a covenant. He has never failed a promise. They would know that. Why?

Because their culture was more centered on faith and religion in general. Ours is less.

The reality is, with the exception of a small percentage of Christians in the United States of America, most people go to church once a week, check off their box and it fits into number five or six. And their priority, don't touch Sundays. It's the Lord's day. I'm going to church. But that really means that for the hour and a half that I go to service, don't touch that because the rest of the day I'm going to go do what I want to do.

Because the days of after meal potlucks in most churches and fellowship for two hours or three hours or outside of it, most churches that doesn't exist anymore. There are still some that do. But it's. Let me check off my box then us, the Sabbath loving people, you know, we're a non denominational Sabbath church. We're not sda, we're not messianic, we're Not Hebrew roots.

We're not any of that type of stuff. We're a non denominational. Then we somehow will pat ourselves on the back a little bit and we're like, well, the Sabbath didn't change. And we remember that and we come in.

But a lot of people are running out that door at the response song because they're like, it's too good to not believe that I don't have to talk to anybody today.

And that's okay. You have the right to do whatever you want to do. Definitely don't want to force you to fellowship, don't want to force you into a relationship, because we can't.

And I've said it for many, many years, we're not a cult and we're definitely not cavemen. We're not going to beat you over the head and drag you out and say, I got another one for table fellowship, Pharaoh.

And they're not eating much.

Throughout scripture, God has kept his covenant and kept his promises with his people. And these people of all people should have known that God has extensively kept his part of the covenant and even kept our side of the covenant. Remember Abram? One of the foundational old covenants. There's many old covenants.

But one of the foundations of the older covenants, Abram was put to sleep and God walked through it. I believe that was Jesus who walked through the covenant of the pieces. Oh, the time with Noah. Oh, yeah, yeah. God walked through that portion of the covenant too.

Because it says God shut the door on Noah in the ark.

God has kept his side of the covenant and he's kept our side of the covenant faithfully. And yet we're still questioning whether he's going to do it or not.

I don't. I struggled with trying to understand where these disciples might have been this week because I am scared of water.

I don't mind going in the ocean if I can see the bottom of it. We're good.

It's even a lake. We're good. Were good with that. But these guys grew up on water for the most part. And remember, from a Hebrew standpoint, from an Israelite standpoint, their DNA, their family history has some pretty big water stories, right?

Some pretty big water stories. Oh, remember they grew up hearing about the Red Sea and how the Red Sea parted and they crossed over it and the Egyptians were all killed and swallowed up. That's a part of their origin story. They remember that. What about a part of their origin story where God had flooded the earth and every other human being had died except for their forefather Noah and his family and the animals that were on the ark in obedience.

That's a part of their origin story. They grew up talking about that. When I go back for Thanksgiving with my family, we talk about the time that I almost ran my brother in law off before he married my sister. At Thanksgiving dinner they talked about the Egyptians being thrown in the sea. Rebrand sings it when he goes and does seders.

There's a song. Horse and rider thrown into the sea. I don't know why all of those songs sound the same. It's like Shabbat Shalom. They all sound the same.

And everybody gives Chris Tomlin a hard time. Sheesh. Maybe Chris Tomlin is more Jewish than we know. Just saying. But they grew up hearing about the floods of the Red Sea and the Egyptians and Noah and what had happened there.

And then also the story of Jonah and the testimony of being in the belly of the whale. Whether that was literal or metaphoric, like these are part of their origin stories. They're a part of their DNA. They grew up knowing about that. And at the end of every single one of those testimonies, they are alive.

Noah is alive. The Israelites are alive. Jonah is alive.

God keeps his promises and God protects Israel and his covenant people even when they don't deserve it on their actions merit.

This is why we taught on the orphan spirit years ago. Because we have promises from God that we cannot accept.

We have an orphan spirit that we can't walk in sonships or as daughterships of the Lord Most High because we're trying to act like God only keeps his promises or only treats us with love like our earthly father or mother did.

God keeps his promises, his value and what he thinks about you is not merit based. He would like for you to not disobey his commandments. He says that repeatedly. But it doesn't change the fact that he loves you even when you make a mistake. And out of love, he wants to be a loving father to bring you towards the right path.

Healthy fathers and mothers do the same thing. But we struggle with allowing God to be that person. Instead we've created this angry, vengeful daddy God up there who's going to beat us.

And yet every single time he is the one, through loving, mercy and compassion to keep the covenant when we constantly transgress.

Sounds like the real issue is in here, not with him.

Then he rose and he rebuked the winds and the sea and there was a great calm and the men marveled, saying what sort of man Is this that even the winds and the seas obey him. The word rebuked here is also used throughout the Gospel writings. Charged.

It's an interesting way. Sometimes it's used as rebuke, which is a stern statement of correction, and sometimes it's a statement of charging in a direction. And I'm not talking physically. I'm talking about an order. Mikhail, clean the bathrooms.

I didn't say, hey, Mikhail, can you please clean the bathrooms? I gave a directive. Charge. In that way.

It's an authoritative call or command that comes with power, authority and influence. So let's put this into concept, this concept of Jesus being able to rebuke the wind and the waves. I've done it. I have stood in the ocean and I rebuke you. They didn't obey.

My kids thought it was funny.

They didn't obey. I lost. I did not have the power or the authority or the office or the influence over the winds and the waves to have those statements. Brent does. Don't let that man pray for rain and don't let that man tell you about the mighty rushing wind.

Otherwise he's going to huff and puff and blow your house over. It'll happen. Many take to social media to rebuke worldly leaders, politicians, corporations, other institutions, including other Christian brothers and sisters, with very little success. How did you feel when 30 people liked your post about being mad at Trump? Did you change anything?

No. You talked to the same echo chamber that you already knew they were going to be mad at Trump or like Trump or whatever. Like you didn't change the world.

John Lennon. Imagine all the people didn't change the world.

Only one. Why? Because creation does not possess the same authority or power or influence as the Creator. The Creator of creation always has more power, influence, authority, because the Creator created.

Who is this man that even the winds and the seas will obey him?

Who is he? I'll tell you who he is. He's the one who told the water to cease from the dry land in Genesis.

He's the one who put all those sea creatures with the funny little dangly things that Pixar puts in their movies into the depths of the water that I'll never swim into.

He's the one who spoke the flood waters over all the earth but down to the smallest of millimeter said, you stay here and not here.

He's the one who set the limitations upon every foe of Israel when they came to attack.

He's the one that when there was minefields in one tank blew the desert so that the sand would part and that the mines would reveal themselves. He's the one that when he put a human being to sleep, walked through all the covenantal pieces that we couldn't do. He's the one who resurrected himself from the dead and into heavenly life. Who is this man that the winds and the seas will obey? It wasn't like he was trying to be in disguise.

He was showing with great power and great might and in a way that they fully understood and many missed them. Last week I reminded you that Jesus had cast out demons with a simple word. The power of Christ compels you. No, it was go.

Nobody would have watched the Exorcist if literally, if the Catholic priest walked in and he was like, go. Rolling the credits.

Maybe they could take that in Batman or some of the Marvel movies, man. Let's just cut 45 minutes off that we all know where we're going with this simple word. Jesus spoke and the demons scattered. We're over here trying to like play scrabble with the demon to get it out. Go.

With a simple word and with a simple touch, diseases fled from bodies. This week we see that even the wind and the waves obeyed upon the simple words of Jesus Worship Team. You can come back.

We marvel a lot about the wonders of God. We see a rainbow or a tornado. We see healings, babies being born.

But humanity as a whole spent centuries marveling at the big while discarding what we consider to be mundane. Humanity has taken a position that even the demons, diseases and creation does not let that sink in for a second. Humanity, us in general, has taken a position in regards to God that the demons, diseases, infirmities and all of creation, the wind and waves have not.

The demons, diseases, infirmities and creation has simple and direct obedience when spoken to by Jesus. Jesus says go, they go. If Jesus says, ceases, cease. The winds and waves cease. If Jesus says, be healed, the infirmities leave.

All of creation, except for the majority of humanity, is in some sort of submission and humility and the realization that the world revolves around something larger than them, that they aren't the highest power. Yet even in our rebellion against God, in our inability to remain humble when we become prideful, narcissistic, arrogant, or we inflate our value. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. If we claim to be bought in the blood, then we have to lay down our crowns and we have to unlock our heart. And allow Jesus to reign as the king and us as his apprentices.

It should cause you a deep reflection in your heart when you read through the Gospel of Matthew and some of the other gospels and you recognize the fact that the demons were more Torah observant and more Jesus observant than many of us are today.

I don't say that to build, to beat you up, or to bring guilt, shame or condemnation. I say that for self reflection. The demons obeyed at the simple voice of God.

And just like we saw last week. Go to the other side of the lake. Chase and I got dinner tonight. Can we do it tomorrow, Lord? Well, my grandpa's not doing well, Lord, I need to go hang out with him out the senior center.

What about Wednesday at 10 o'? Clock? The demons directly obeyed when God told them to do something. And now we see today we see that even the wind and the waves directly obeyed.

Humanity and creation is constantly fighting against order. And God loves us so much that he sent his Son and then sent the Spirit of Jesus, as Paul writes in Roman, or we call it the Holy Spirit or the Holy Ghost to empower us to walk in more order than there is the chaos of this life.

I mean, after all, we're the only creation that seems to wrestle with who the Creator and what the Creator's power is.

The wind and waves didn't say, wait a second, Jesus, are you allowed to do that? No, that was the scribes and the Pharisees. That was humanity. Wait a second. Are you allowed to do that on the Sabbath?

Jesus, the wind and waves just obeyed.

The demons didn't say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Jesus, your time has not come yet.

No, they went.

A lot of the problems we have in our life is because we don't want to be in simple obedience to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

For all the parents in this room, I asked you to take out the trash. I'm going to sweep the floor. I didn't ask you to sweep the floor. I asked you to take out the trash. When Jesus is calling and Jesus is asking, we could say, jesus, I understand you told me to pray for the homeless man, but I was busy creating an international ministry.

He's like, that's awesome. I asked you to go to the homeless, not create an international ministry.

Well, Jesus, I need to prove a point to them, so I need them to submit and, and I need them to apologize first. No, no, I ask you to forgive them. I don't really care what point you're trying to prove. Why don't you let me do that? Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

The gospel has one theme that continues to come up through all of us.

God is the only one that can be perfection. Whether that would be in plans, timings, words, how we do it in any capacity, whatever the capacity is, God is literally the only one who can be perfection.

And yet we consistently wrestle with void of our cultural understanding. Not many people in this room have even been to Israel, let alone grew up in that culture or whatever. And we debate and we argue and we try to find a loophole.

Why?

Why? Why do we continuously try to find the hardest way to be in relationship with God when God consistently tries to show even the wind and waves obey? Everybody on that boat saw Jesus do miraculous things. They saw Jesus do things that some of us in this room have never seen before.

And we're going to continue over the next couple of weeks. Cam's going to fill in while I'm. While I'm out of town on vacation. We see the wrestle continues. Christ is here.

He's inviting us into an invitation. They knew who Mashiach would be, but they didn't want him to be that person. And yet, from our corner of Christianity, we still argue today over what is God allowed to do and how is the God supposed to do it, and how are we supposed to interact? Simple obedience, simple humility, simple love.

We get into the jots and the tittles and all these other things, and God's like, can we just start with obedience? Can we just start with, if I ask you to take one step left, that you don't tell me why we need to take two steps left, can you not trust me? I've never failed you. I've never failed your ancestors. If I ask you to go, can you just go?

We're like, I'm laying a fleece out. Show me, Lord. He's like, I did. I asked you. I asked you to go.

I asked you to pray. I asked you to do these things.

Even creation obeys the Creator every week, every day of our life, because of how our culture currently is. You have to ask yourself in the morning when you wake up, who's the king of my heart?

You can say, well, I know Jesus is the king of my heart. Yeah. What's every day look like for you? Does it look like he's the king of your heart? This is why I say you have to ask yourself every day, who is the king of your heart?

And if you say Jesus, hopefully, then every other decision for the rest of the day is a choice or an opportunity for you to make a decision. Whether you are exampling the king, king of your heart, or you're exampling the king of your flesh.

It's really that simple. Stand with me. Let's respond.