The Effective Change of Jesus

Happy Sunday morning to you all! Hopefully you enjoyed having the extra week to review parts 1 and 2 of “The Effective Change of Jesus”. Now with no further delay let’s recap John 1:1-5 thus far and dive right into our central focus for this segment. 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. As we look at verse 3 this week it says, 3 “All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made”. So here is John answering an age-old question by power of the Holy Spirit and also his actual physical time spent with Jesus himself.

“Where did we come from and how did the world get here”? Many so-called geniuses, scholars, historians and radicals have come to various conclusions. However, the biblical account is the only logical explanation that makes sense. Now some may say well how can you be so certain? I would first say, for anything to be concrete and true is must have a solid foundation to stand on and remain constant. Evolution has no foundation just a supposed progression or natural order of things. Yet, what we as humans supposedly came from never remains constant in the argument. As I once told a group of young people I was mentoring. I’ve been living a number of years and no matter how many times I go to the zoo, that same monkey is still a monkey. Now last I checked I was still Greg although in my worldly days as most sinners I would monkey around from time to time. Then some say, the Big Bang caused everything to exist, but its’ science is theoretical with no real explanation. Well, I don’t know about you but if everything banged once what would stop it from banging again? And most things I know that bang together cause damage not beauty and wonders to behold!

As we look around wherever we may be, we see the never changing truth in God’s word. The bible says in Matthew 8:27, “Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?”

The disciples experienced the effective change of Jesus first hand. Here they are traveling with Jesus in a boat on the sea of Galilee, which is actually a lake by way. The largest freshwater lake in Israel even today. Jesus is tired and asleep in the boat. A tempest (violent and windy storm) arose and the disciples are thinking the worst, they are going to die! Now here is the part we overlook when reading this popular biblical account. This is actually normal for this type of storm to occur in this region of Israel. Lake Galilee which is estimated at 690 ft below sea level is north of Mt. Hermon which stands an estimated 9,200 ft. And from May to Oct fierce winds come through those narrow gorges and the valley in this area causing severe storms. But in this particular instance it seems the wind and sea were having a little extra fun at the expense of the disciples. We get a sense of this in three key points from the full context of Matthew 8:23-27.

1. The storm had not started while Jesus was first awake on the boat only when He went to sleep. Then the wind and sea began to test the disciples.

2. When the disciples awoke Jesus out of fear, He is calm and His concern is addressing their lack of faith not the storm although it was still raging.

3. But then Matthew attest in writing his gospel account that Jesus arose and rebuked the wind and sea. Now we all know what happens anytime Jesus rises up and rebukes! There is Victory!

Now to “rebuke” something means to express one's sharp disapproval or criticism because of someone or something's behavior or actions. So obviously Jesus was not happy with the wind and sea and it must have been acting out of character. Because He sternly commanded them both to knock it off. The reaction from the wind and sea was obedient and immediate. As the bible says after Jesus spoke there was a great calm. The disciples missed an opportunity to display who made and lives in them, because their fear stood in the way. More importantly to realize that the Commander was on board with them. Often times many of us miss this same opportunity to recognize who Jesus is and our storm is only occurring on dry land.

We must acknowledge that for everything created God simply spoke “Let there be” and from nothing, the Latin word for this is called ex nihilo. He formed the universe in which we live and it’s still constantly obedient to His commands today. We should be glad that we have One Lord, One Faith and One Baptism (Ephesians 4:5) because that makes things simple for us to understand. Jesus the concrete truth, the source and the architect. If you have a problem with the way anything was constructed or how existence was planned out. You only have one CEO to file a complaint with and he’s available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and He answers all calls directly. I dare you to try and get that kind of service from evolution or the big bang theory.

You, I and everything that has ever existed or that exist is due to the perfect will of God. Which is executed by the righteous craftmanship of His only begotten son Jesus Christ!