Here we find Jesus at the end of a long day of preaching, and what a day it had been. He had taught many and it had been a very long and stressful day for him and His disciples. Matter of fact, at one time the crowd had gotten so large that Jesus had to resort to a boat. He got in the boat and taught the people from there, or else the crowd would have pushed Him in to the sea.

He had taught many things which would all be of great interest to us all. Such as the parable of the sower, the parable of the candle under a bushel, the parable of the coming harvest, and the parable of the mustard seed. But for the purpose of this sermon and for my belief that God has given me a certain subject to preach on, I want to look at the close of the day. At the closing of the day Jesus is going to take his disciples on an adventure that they will never forget. Their lives would never be the same.

There are three things we need to look at and understand about this adventure, this trip with Jesus.

    1. What a great promise! "Let us pass over to the other side."

         A. Speaks of taking a journey with Jesus

          B. Speaks of Fellowship with God during that journey and after the

              journey.

         C. Speaks of a safe passage to the other side.

    2. Is not the Christian life like a journey?

       A. As the disciples we may be weary when He calls, but we must go.

       B. Yet still the choice is ours we must decide to go on the journey

            with Jesus.

       C. We can be sure that He will go with us on this journey.

    3. Many years prior to this God had once before said go to the other

         side (Deut.1:6-8)  (NUB.14:20-24)

II. THE PERILS OF THE STORM (Vs. 36-37)

    1. There will be storms, dangers, and hard times in life, even when on a

        journey with Jesus!

      A. The waves of the storm were coming into the boat! Sinking the

            boat!

            1. Feel like your boat is sinking?

    2. There are lessons to be learned out of the storms of life. God’s

         children are not exempt!

        A. They were obeying and yet the storm came.

        B. They were on a journey with Jesus, yet the storm came.

        C. They were in the center of God's will and yet the storm came.

    1. Jesus knew that the storm would come.

    2. Jesus was equipped to send the storm away.

    3. But Jesus chose to go through the storm with his disciples.

    4. This storm enabled His disciples to measure their faith.

        A. Some times we need to measure our faith to see if it is saving

             faith! (JS. 2:14-18)

    5. The disciples learned that Jesus was in the storm with them.

    6. They learned that Jesus is able.

    7. Different stomps for different reasons.

        A. Jonah's storm was to bring him back to the Lord.

        B. Paul's storm was to provide witnessing opportunities.

    8. Don't judge another's storms.

A young coed had two problems common to many students: low grades and no money. She was forced to communicate both to her parents, who she knew would have trouble understanding. After considerable thought she used a creative approach to soften the blows of reality and wrote:

Dear Mom and Dad,

Just thought I'd drop you a note to clue you in on my plans. I've fallen in love with a guy named Jim. He quit high school after grade eleven to get married. About a year ago he got a divorce.

We've been going steady for two months and plan to get married in the fall. Until then, I've decided to move into his apartment (I think I might be pregnant).

At any rate, I dropped out of school last week, although I'd like to finish college sometime in the future.

On the next page, she continued:

Mom and Dad, I just want you to know that everything I've written so far in this letter is false. NONE of it is true.

But Mom and Dad, it IS true that I got a C in French and flunked Math. It IS true that I'm going to need some more money for my tuition payments.

Even bad news can sound like good news if it is seen from a certain vantage point. So much in life depends on "where you're coming from" as you face your circumstances. The secret in this case and in yours is perspective.