Rev. Dr. M. Taylor Bach

Acts 27:9-20 Matthew 8:23-27

Bon Jovi has written a song which is relevant for this morning. The name of the song is Living on a Prayer. It is about a young dock worker who lost his job because of the economy and his wife who has pretty much of a menial job, just barely being paid the lowest possible wages, and yet, they have each other. The closing line of the song is&”We are halfway there, living on a prayer. Take my hand and we'll make it, I swear, living on a prayer.” The song depicts one of the storms of life and how a young couple gets through it.

This past week was Vacation Bible School. We had a nautical theme, The High Seas. The two scripture readings this morning are two of the three scriptures about storms in the Bible. We have to consider that right now, there are lots of life storms. As we think about these Biblical passages, they're pretty symbolic of all possible kinds of life storms and how we cope with high seas and raging winds. Interestingly enough, in two of these Biblical passages, the word to describe the storms is seismos. What we know is seismos is the Greek word that we get our English word seismic meaning huge. If we have a seismic earthquake, it is an enormous earthquake registering 7 to 10 on the Richter scale. Another Greek word that is sometimes used for these storms is cataclysmos. We get our word cataclysmic from this word meaning a horrible calamity. It is terrible. Therefore we understand from these Biblical stories that the storms are just horrible. They are cataclysmic. They are seismic in proportion. They are enormous  these can analogously apply to the storms of life.

What are some of these storms of life that are occurring right now? Foreclosures of homes. I understand Ohio has something like the third largest group of foreclosed homes in the nation. Other storms of life right now are loss of jobs. Currently, there are over 400,000 jobs lost in Ohio right now and many more people suffering because of this. It is not that they can't collect unemployment benefits but a person's definition frequently is defined by what he/she does. If a person loses their job, they also lose who they are. They feel terribly lost because their self-definition is damaged. Their whole family suffers. Depression is rampant. These are seismic storms that are occurring. There are more&we have the market crash. We have gridlock in Congress and the polarization of society and the Gulf oil spill. There are all kinds of seismic storms going on in our lives right now. So it is no wonder that we are living on a prayer as Jon Bon Jovi would say. We need God's help enormously.

There is an interesting thing to consider as we think about these Biblical passages. That is, when Jesus gets in the boat, we are able to call upon Him, He intervenes and the storm ceases. He has the power to calm the storms of life. So we need to call for Jesus to get into our boat. I have a couple examples of this that will bring home the point of how important it is to live a life in the presence of Jesus, the presence of God, asking Him for help in troubled times that we live in. One is of an elderly couple in Wheeling, West Virginia - Erma and Francis Belliote. They were sitting in their home one night watching television when suddenly a man broke into their home brandishing a gun, threatening them and asking for their money. At that time, a notice came on the news that a bank robber had just robbed one of the banks near by and so they knew this was he. A storm in life. The man held them hostage for nine hours. How did they handle that? They handled that by reading to the man from the Word of God, the Bible. As they read the Word of God to him, he softened and began to tell them of his woes, how he had lost work and how he was angry at the banking system for charging him for overdraft fees when he had overdrawn his bank account and how he was angry with his boss and how he had been damaged by the economy. Erma had compassion on him. She actually got up and while she was being held hostage, baked him cookies. As she and her husband read the Bible to him, their fear ceased. Somehow the police discovered that he was in their house and they talked the man into letting the Belliote's go. They convinced him to walk out and surrender to the police. All worked out well. It was a happy ending. It was a happy ending because they trusted in God.

I have a friend right now who I've known for many years who has been a terrible victim of this economy. He has also been a victim of some of the cruelty of man's inhumanity to man. He was a Vice President of a very large company, a national company. That company was bought out by another company. He was Vice President of sales and while he was a salesman, he had done such a great job that he had taken a lot of business away from the company that ultimately bought his company out. So the new owners didn't like this man. Immediately they told him that they were going to let him go. He had brought in over three million dollars into the company he had worked for and now he was without a job. It cost him great pain and great suffering but it really was an opportunity for him to turn to Christ. As I listened to him, he frequently said how this was actually a gift from God, that Christ was with him in it. He would say that he knew that this was an opportunity for him to draw nearer to God's Word and to discover God's purpose in his life. He fairly rapidly got another job but he discovered in this economy, his new bosses expected him to produce immediately. He told his new bosses it would take him at least eighteen months in these economic conditions to develop the kinds of clients they were asking for. But after three months they said he wasn't producing and they fired him. So twice now he had lost his job. To this day, he doesn't have one. But what he does have is remarkable strengthening faith. Recently, he told me he has four job offers and I am sure it's because he turned it all over to Jesus Christ. He asked Jesus to get into his boat to help calm his storms and be with him. He said he was going through his savings at an enormous pace. Because he was a vice president of a company, he had a huge salary when he worked. So his family was continuing to live as if they still had that huge salary. He was reaching a panic mode of high anxiety in this whole situation as he watched his life savings dwindle. Through it all he learned to trust in Jesus and depend upon His Word. Now he has four job offers and has the problem of trying to figure out which one God wants him to take.

When we invite Jesus to get into our boat, we invite Him to be with us through the storms of life. This week we were teaching the children in Vacation Bible School the principles on posters that you see hanging up here: that you can TRUST GOD'S WORD and that GOD'S WORD IS SURPRISING. There are answers in that Bible for each and every one of us if we turn to those pages. GOD'S WORD IS FOR EVERYONE, not just the few elite, but for anyone who is willing to pick up the Bible and read it. You will find comfort there. It is what we find on the last poster, GOD'S WORD IS COMFORTING. After all, Jesus said, “Come to me all you who are heavily burdened and I will give you rest, rest for your soul.” GOD'S WORD IS LIFE CHANGING. So when we need a change in our life, whether it is a new job, new economic conditions, help with marital discord or the life change of eliminating a personality flaw, God is there through His Bible to help us. Why? Because God loves us as John 3:16 says, “God so loved each and every one of you that He gave His only begotten Son, that & you may have eternal life.” What a tremendous gift. What a tremendous revelation that is!

As we did our Vacation Bible School this time, I was constantly thinking, “OK, I want to give a sermon this morning that will connect with Vacation Bible School children but will also be relevant to the adults.” I found a poem that I rewrote to fit the circumstances. I'll take credit for part of it and I will give the author who is anonymous credit for the rest. But I would like to end with it this morning. Listen carefully.

Whenever I'm troubled and lost in despair, I bundle all my troubles and go to God in prayer. I tell Him I'm sick and lost and lonely, too. That my mind is deeply burdened And I don't know what to do. But I know that He stilled the tempest and He calmed the angry sea. And I humbly ask if in His love He'll do the same for me. And then I just keep quiet and I visualize problems ceased. And when I abide in that stillness, I discovered His peace.