Sermon Notes, February 26,
2017
Rev. Garry McGlinchy
Pastor
Garry continued his sermon series “Seven Hebrew Words Every Believer Should
Know.” Over the last few weeks we have
been talking about Hebrew words that every believer should know. We talked about hessed, God’s loving
kindness; emunah, meaning faith in action; tefillah, prayer that
requires us to examine our hearts; ruach, meaning breath, wind, or
spirit; we talked about how the Holy Spirit, ruach hakadesh, is alive in
us, giving us a rhythm of inhaling God’s Spirit and exhaling praise; shalom,
in the Hebrew meaning Peace; and nephesh, meaning soul, living being,
life. We conclude our series with
today's word mem, meaning
chaos. The scripture basis is Matthew
14:22-33, when Jesus walked on the water and called Peter to do so as well.
Mem is
the 13th letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, with each letter given a
numerical value, starting with Aleph (1), through Tet (9). The 10th letter Yod begins a new
number sequence valuing the letters by tens, making Yod (10) and ending
with the 18th letter, Ayin (90).
The sequence changes again with the 19th letter Kaf with a value
of 100, making the 22nd letter Tav a 400 value. This is important because every letter has
meaning and value that determines the importance of the word. Mem has a value of 40 and is often
associated with 40 days and nights of flood waters for Noah, 40 years of
wandering in the desert for the people of Israel, 40 days of Moses on Mount
Sinai, 40 days from conception to initial formation of a fetus, 40 weeks of
gestation until birth, and 40 years of age before a man develops insight.
To the Jews, the
ocean and sea was not necessarily associated with positive experience. The Hebrew word for water, Mayim,
comes from the root mem meaning chaos.
This makes sense when you consider the story of Noah's flood in Genesis
6-8, and even later on when Jonah initially decided to run away from God's call
to go to Nineveh. (Jonah 1:4) And after
watching the devastation of the recent storms that ravaged California, we can begin to understand why the Jews might consider the oceans and the
seas chaotic. If this is true, then why
would Jesus send his disciples into chaos?
He insisted that they get in the boat and cross the sea. Surely He had to have known a storm was
coming . . yet He sends them out. And
while they were being tossed around in this great storm they saw something that
more than likely frightened them more than any storm. They saw something moving toward them. Our scripture reading tells us that they
thought it was a ghost coming toward them.
But no. It was the master of the storm himself, Jesus!
There are a few
things to be pointed out in this passage.
We see in verse 23 that Jesus makes spending time with the Father a
priority. With as busy and chaotic as
things got in the everyday life of Jesus, He always stopped to dwell in the
presence of the Lord. This tells us that
no matter how crazy, how chaotic, how busy our weeks can get it is important,
no, imperative, that we stop what we are doing and get with the Father! If we continue along the path of trying to
live life our way, we will be heading the wrong way. However, when we stop and spend time with
Him, He brings His shalom that we talked about a few weeks ago, and
everything falls into place.
A second point
is that in the crazy, chaotic, out of control, tumultuous world that we live
in, we must always understand and remember that He is in control! No matter what happens, He is the master of
every storm that comes our way. Even if
the storm is self-induced. We don't
always make the best decisions, do we?
Sometimes those decisions come with greater consequences than what we
could ever consider. Sometimes it seems
like we will never escape those consequences.
And you can count on things getting out of control when you make the
decision to fully surrender yourself to the will of God; this is the last thing the devil wants you to
do!
Peter's role in
this story is unique. He is the only one
in the boat who responds out of faith.
Peter is impulsive, and because of this he experiences first-hand the
power of God! And then he took his eyes
off Jesus and began to sink.
The last point
is two-fold. First, while we may never
walk on water, we will experience times of turmoil in our lives. We must remember to keep our eyes on Him and
not get distracted by the 'waves' that crash around us, or we, like Peter will
sink. The second part of this is that
Jesus calls us out of the boat. When you
feel like everything is crashing down around you, Jesus calls you out of the
chaos to walk with Him. Remember, God
wants to give you his shalom, peace, while the world offers you mem, chaos.
The next time
life throws you out of control, are you going to stop and seek Jesus? Or are you going to try and handle it on your
own? If you are in the midst of a storm,
no matter how big or how small, are you ready to step out of the boat and walk
toward Jesus and allow Him to take the chaos of your life and turn it into shalom?
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