The Storm Obeys (updated)
The Life of Jesus  Vol.3  Part 5
Mark 4:35-41      9-18-11

Summary: The end-times level storm arose and frightened the Disciples, who then woke Jesus up and accused Him of not caring. Jesus stilled the storm and rebuked them for their cowardice and lack of faith. When they saw the calm, they were even more afraid. Application: Fear God ALONE (use scary things to train your heart to fear Him), trust in Him in the storms of your life, and hope in the day when He will redeem this cursed world.
				
Introduction
The Creation rages out of our Control
Why the Miracles?
The Curse
Jesus’ Weariness
The Storm
The Sleep
Fear
Picture the Scene
Great Fear
Fear the Lord
Fear nothing else
Use earthly threats to train your heart
Fearing the storm without fearing the Lord
Trust the Lord
Hope in the Lord
 
Mark 4:35-41 That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, "Let us go over to the other side." 36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. 37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?" 39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, "Quiet! Be still!" Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. 40 He said to his disciples, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?" 41 They were terrified and asked each other, "Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!"

Introduction
The Creation rages out of our Control
In the first six months of this year, ninety-eight natural disasters have occurred in the United States. That is double the normal number. And the death toll is also double. It has been a rough year for a lot of people. Floods, earthquakes, disease, fires, volcanoes, hurricanes, tornados - and there is nothing we can do about it. The best we can do is just try to stay out of their way so we don’t get killed. But even that proved impossible for thousands of people who have died already this year from natural disasters. 
The very first command God gave after creating the world was for man to fill the earth and subdue it. But that is not happening. This world rages out of our control. We are never more helpless than when we go up against nature. With all our knowledge and ability and technology and nuclear power and everything else, we do not even have the capability of stopping a gentle breeze. The power it would take to subdue this world and get it under control is not only beyond the reach of man - it is utterly inconceivable to man. But the promise of God’s Word is that someday a Man would come who had that power, and that Man will fix everything that is wrong with the creation. And that Man did not just make empty claims that He could do that – He proved it, and this morning I am going to tell you the true story of that proof.
Why the Miracles?
For our next major study, I want to go verse by verse through the book of 1 Peter, but before we do that I want to take a few weeks to look at some of the miracles of Jesus. It is good to periodically turn our attention back to the works of Jesus for a few different reasons. First, because Jesus’ deeds are very often neglected. We study Jesus’ teaching, but we tend to skim over his deeds. And most people, when they do read about His miracles, do not spend much time trying to discern the meaning. People see an account of a miracle and think, “OK, so Jesus did that” and read on. But each of the things Jesus did had a purpose. His miracles were not random. There is a reason he spit in the dirt when He healed the blind man. There is a reason He put the wine in water jars instead of the empty wineskins. The black letters in the gospels are designed to teach us just as much as the red letters.
A second reason this is important is the fact that Jesus continually pointed to His deeds. When John the Baptist was thrown in prison and had doubts about Jesus, he sent some disciples to ask Jesus if He really was the Messiah. And Jesus responded by doing a whole flurry of miracles and then said, “Go tell John what you just saw” (Lk. 7:20-22). Jesus did that often. In John 10, they asked if Jesus was the Messiah and He said, “The miracles I do in my Father's name speak for me” (Jn.10:25).

John 5:36 the very work that the Father has given me to finish, and which I am doing, testifies that the Father has sent me.

You see the same thing in John 14:11 and Matthew 16:9-10. Then you see the Apostles also pointing to Jesus’ works in the book of Acts (Acts 2:22 and Acts 10:37). The crowds brought it up in …

John 7:31 They said, "When the Christ comes, will he do more miraculous signs than this man?"

Even Jesus’ enemies were forced to acknowledge His miracles (Jn. 10:31-33, Jn. 11:47-48, Mt.9:34).
We need to study the works of Jesus. We need to see Him in action.

Hebrews 12:2-3 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus … 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Jesus is the clearest picture we have of the nature of God, so what I would like to do from time to time is go back and study some of the deeds of our Lord in the gospels.
The Curse
So let me begin by giving you some background that is crucial for understanding the meaning of this particular miracle. In Genesis 1, where we have the description of the creation of the world, six times the narrator stops and comments about how the creation was good. Then, after it was all completed, its says, “Behold, it was very good” (Gn.1:31). God created a beautiful, spectacular, wonderful, problem-free creation, and took delight in the fact that it was nothing but good. And then He cursed it. In Genesis 3, after Adam and Eve decided to rebel against God and brought sin into the world, the consequence of that was a devastating curse. And when I say, “devastating,” I am talking about the most devastating thing that has ever taken place – ever. The ground was cursed, so that man’s work became difficult and painful. Giving birth to children became excruciatingly painful. 
And it was not just the soil and the womb that were affected. It was everything.

Romans 8:20 the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

The whole process of decay is part of the curse. Decay, disease, suffering, sorrow, death – all of it is due to the curse. It even affects the animals. When the creation was still good, before the Fall and the curse, there was no death or suffering, and animals were not dangerous. But one of the effects of the curse was the animals went haywire. Wild animals will scratch and claw and bite and gore and trample and kill you. Some animals will suck blood out of you or inject poison into you. Anyone with eyes can look around and see that things are not as they should be. When you see a child die of cystic fibrosis, or when some terrible injustice is done to you, or someone is just minding his own business and a flood or tornado comes and destroys everything he has – everyone has a sense in them that this is not the way things ought to be. According to evolutionary theory, things are better than they have ever been, and they are getting nothing but better. But if that were true why is there a universal understanding in the heart of all men and women that things are not as they should be, and a universal longing for the world to be set right? The entire creation groans under the curse of God because of sin and longs for redemption to come. 
And long ago God promised that one day that redemption will come. The day will come when a descendent of King David will come and redeem the whole creation. That is the Messiah. And when He comes, this is what He will do:

Isaiah 65:17 Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth.  The former things will not be remembered … 25 The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox …They will neither harm nor destroy  

If you are running for the office of Messiah, one of the qualifications is you have to be able to reverse the curse and take control of this creation. And that requires power that is inconceivable. In fact, for the pagans in the ancient near east, not even the gods had that kind of power. They believed the gods had fought against the forces of chaos, and had finally succeeded in pushing the frontiers of chaos off the land into the sea. So the gods were able to bring some kind of order to the land, but not even the gods could control the sea.
That is why the sailors in the book of Jonah were so shocked at the power of Jonah’s God.

Jonah 1:15-16 Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the sea stood still from its raging. 16 At this the men feared Yahweh with a great fear.

They feared with a great fear because they realized they were dealing with a God who was more powerful than all their gods put together. Jonah had told them that back in verse 9.

Jonah 1:9 He answered, "I am a Hebrew and I worship Yahweh, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land."
He is the Creator of the sea and He still controls it – even at its wildest. This was an amazing thing for the people of that culture. That is why it is repeated so many times in the Old Testament that the God of Israel is sovereign over the sea.

Psalms 135:6 The Lord does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths.

The worthless, powerless lame-o gods of the nations really had no power at all, but the people could at least imagine they had some power on the land. They would offer a sacrifice and then get a good crop and say, “See, the sacrifice worked. Our god came through for us.” It is easy to imagine your god having that power, because crops come up all the time. But no one controlled the sea. And it is really the same today with the modern false gods in our culture. In our culture, the main god people worship and trust in is science and technology. So many people put all their trust in technology. But technology cannot do anything about a hurricane or a tsunami – nothing. Our strongest structures crumble like cards in the face of a volcano, flood, earthquake, hurricane, or tidal wave. The pagan deities do not even claim to have that kind of power. But hang on to your seat, because we are about to encounter a force far more powerful than all those put together. We are going to see the Messiah go up against the full fury of nature – head to head.
Jesus’ Weariness 
And at first, frankly, He does not look like He will be up to the task. 

Mark 4:35 That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, "Let us go over to the other side." 36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. 

They took Him “just as He was.” How was He? Well, honestly - tired. This took place at the end of an incredibly long day for Jesus. We are first introduced to this day way back in Mark 3:20 where we read that Jesus was so busy He was not even able to eat. The crowds were relentless, even coming right into His house. It was a day filled with preaching. It was the day Jesus taught all the parables of Matthew 13, and then, later that day in another context, He explained them to His Disciples. It was a day of ministry. Earlier that day Jesus had done battle with Satan and expelled a demon. It was a day of fierce confrontation with the Pharisees who accused Him of being demonized and being empowered by the Devil. It was also that same day when Jesus’ own family came to take Him away because they thought He was insane. It was a sad day – a hard day both physically and emotionally. It was one of those long, difficult, depressing, discouraging days that go on and on and never seem to end. And Jesus, in His humanness, was drained by days like that just like we are. So now there is this impromptu decision to set sail across the Sea of Galilee. And without any preparation or rest, they launch the boats and off they go.

Luke 8:23 As they sailed, he fell asleep. 

This is Jesus in His weakness. When God became a man, He was fully man. He was not superman. He had the normal amount of physical strength and stamina – just like you and me, and at the end of a long, hard day, He needs some sleep.

The Storm

37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 

In Matthew’s account it says, “Behold! A great storm arose.” Behold! Look! This was not a typical storm. The Sea of Galilee is known for its sudden, violent storms. And these were seasoned, professional fishermen. They dealt with these storms on a routine basis. But as severe as those storms were, this one was different. Matthew calls it a seismos. That is the normal Greek word for earthquake. And it is significant because it is a term used of end-times cataclysms. This was a storm of end-times magnitude. Or in our vernacular - a storm of “biblical” proportions.
Luke points out that they were in great danger, and that the waves were coming over the boat. And Mark says the boat was swamped. They were going down. This was a mayday situation. 
They are not in a huge, ocean-going vessel here. In 1986 they dredged up a boat from the bottom of the Sea of Galilee that is dated to Jesus’ time. It was 26.5 feet long, 7.5 feet wide and 4.5 feet high. There was a 115 pound ballast bag in the back. There was a place for oars as well as a mast. It took a crew of five and could carry about ten people.

The Sleep

38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. 

He really slept well. He is in a little, wooden fishing boat in the middle of an end-times magnitude cataclysm and He is out cold. That is what I call a sound sleeper. That makes sense. He did not have anything on His conscience. And more importantly, He did not worry – about anything. Unlike someone you might be married to, He was not a backseat driver. He placed Himself in the hands of imperfect men, and fell asleep. And He could do that because He knew the Father would take care of Him. He had no fear.

Fear
But the disciples did. They were in a panic. It is interesting if you put all three accounts together.

Matthew 8:25 The disciples went and woke him, saying, "Lord, save us! We're going to drown!"

Luke 8:24 "Master, Master, we're going to drown!"

Mark 4:38 The disciples woke him and said to him, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?"

In the pandemonium of that moment they were shouting and peppering Jesus with all kinds of different things - LORD, teacher, Master, Master!  Save us!  We’re drowning!   Don’t you care?  Wake up!

39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, "Quiet! Be still!" Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. 

He rebuked the wind and it stopped. “Died down” is a terrible translation of the aorist indicative. It did not die down – it stopped. After Jesus gave the order to stop, one more movement of a wave or breeze would have been disobedience, and the creation does not disobey the Creator. The word translated, “calm” refers to a still, flat, placid sea.  And Mark says it was a “great calm” Calm is calm, right? But this is a great calm – calmer than normal calm – scary calm.
It is amazing how the Bible writers report these things. That is one of the things that has impressed legal experts with their credibility as eye-witnesses. They add no commentary, no embellishment. In fact, it is like they bend over backwards to understate the event. They just report it in the blandest of terms. They do not have to spice it up with a whole lot of adjectives and embellishments. They do not want to add any of that in because the events speak for themselves. When we want something to be spectacular we have to add in fireworks and special effects, and exciting music and lazars and dancers and a smoke machine and all the rest. Strip all that stuff away, and what you have left is not all that spectacular. But the works of Jesus were so awesome that any extra verbiage in describing it would just diminish it.
Picture the Scene
Think about it. Jesus brought this storm – both the wind and the waves – to an instant stop with a word. Imagine you are one of the disciples. Let’s just climb into the boat with them and get a first-hand look at this. You shove off from the shore and begin paddling out into the sea while Peter and James work on getting the sail up. It has been a long day, it is already getting dark, but that’s OK - you have been out here before at night. It is calm, but you start to notice storm clouds gathering, and you brace yourself.
Jesus is already conked out in the back. He is dead asleep. That’s fine – He is not a sailor anyway. He grew up inland. This is your area of expertise, so you are glad to see Him finally get some rest.
So you turn your eyes back to those clouds. It is coming fast. Peter: “Get ready guys. A few more minutes and it’s going to get violent.” Sure enough – not five minutes later you find all twelve of you are scrambling all over the boat, massive waves, strong winds…You think, “Not another one of these. These storms are scary.”
But a few minutes later, this storm has accelerated and exploded into something you have never seen before, and you find yourself gripped with fear – fear for your life.
Now it is getting even worse! You and all the others are getting popped around like popcorn in the boat, the waves jamming the boat all over the place, and you strain with every muscle in your body to hit those breakers bow-first, because you know if it hits at even the slightest angle, the boat will capsize. You think, “We are out of control. This is too much. There is too much wind. These waves… we’re getting swamped...” Suddenly, bam! – you get blindsided by a huge wave out of nowhere. You open your eyes just in time to see Peter get blasted off his seat by another wave. 
You are under water – choking, but you can still feel the oar. You think, “I’m still in the boat!” But you look around and you see the boat is starting to go under.
There is no coast guard, no life jackets – you are miles from shore at night in the dark.
 “We’re out here in the middle of this sea at night, and we’re going to drown!”
And you look at Jesus, and He is asleep! And it kind of makes you mad so you go over to wake Him up.
But He is really out of it. You start shaking Him, “We’re sinking! We’re going to die! Don’t you care? What are you doing? WAKE UP!”
And Jesus opens His eyes and sees all the chaos and the yelling and panic and stands up, takes one look around and says, “STOP!” And the next sound you hear is “drip” as a drop of water drips down off the bow of the boat into the water. And you see the little ripples go out in circles. And it is silent. The boat is not even rocking. It is like it is cemented still. There is not a gentle breeze against your face – just dead stillness like you have never felt in your life.
A chill runs down your back. You have never seen stillness like this. You look down at the water and it looks like glass. And the only sound you hear is the disciples’ breathing, and your own heart still pounding. And you look over the side into the water, and you see a perfect reflection of your face.
Great Fear
And you see on your face an expression that has never been on your face before – abject terror. Scripture says during the storm, when they thought they were going to die, they were afraid. They had fear – regular fear. But verse 41 says after Jesus stilled the storm, they had great fear.

41 They were terrified

You are more terrified now than you were during the storm because this…this is supernatural – beyond supernatural. This is not like anything you have experienced, heard about, read about or thought about. Jesus, with a word, instantly stopped this storm – both the wind and the waves. And you hear a couple of the guys up front, "Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!" In Matthew’s account, they are saying, “What kind of man is this? We do not have a category for this. We have seen rabbis, that is one thing. There have been prophets - even miracles workers, but this! There is no category in our minds for this Person.”
Most paintings that depict this miracle show Jesus standing up with His hand raised in the middle of a raging storm. I love this painting because it shows the actual miracle – the storm is gone, the sea is still, and the Disciples are terrified. Jesus did something no other miracle worker has ever done. And it is so easy for him. He does not have to go to the back of the boat and spend ten minutes working up the power. You might expect He would at least put a little drama into it:  “Wow! This is a bad one – I can handle this - STAND BACK!...UGH!” None of that – no effort. No strain. He just delivers an ultimatum. Effortless.
They are safe now, and yet their fear has intensified. The only thing more terrifying than having a storm raging outside of your boat is having the Creator of the universe in your boat. They realize they are standing next to someone who can control the wind! He instantly flattens the waves! He commands the very laws of physics. Gravity and the laws of motion obey Him. This is none other than Almighty God Himself!
And the statement about their terror is important. Earlier I mentioned Jonah. There are a number of similarities between this and what happened with Jonah. In both cases there was a sudden storm, and someone sleeping the boat in the midst of the storm. And in both cases the crew gets upset with the one sleeping because he does not seem to care, and they wake him up. In both cases the boat is on the verge of sinking. And in both cases the storm is miraculously stopped instantly. And the climax of both stories is the same – and this phrase is word-for-word the same in the Greek translation of Jonah and in Mark. Right after the sea becomes still it says, “And they feared with a great fear.” Mark borrows the language from the Jonah account to call to our minds that last part. The sailors in Jonah 1 feared with a great fear after the storm was stilled because they realized they were dealing with the supreme God above all other gods — the only God who could command the chaos of the sea. And Mark is making the point that the Disciples had that same fear because they realized Jesus was that same, supreme, almighty, creator God.

Fear the Lord
Well, that is an exciting story, but what does it mean for us? Everything God included in the Bible was included in order to teach us something about how to live. So what does this teach us that we can put into practice this afternoon and tomorrow morning? It teaches us a couple things. The first one is obvious – fear the Lord. When you come face to face with the God who reigns over nature, there is one way to respond, and that is the response of the sailors in Jonah, and the response of the Disciples: fear. Great fear. Stand in awe before the one who can control wind. Take Him seriously and do not trifle with Him. 
Fear nothing else
Fear Him – and fear Him alone. Look again at verse 40. Immediately after calming the wind and waves, Jesus rebukes His disciples. 

40 He said to his disciples, "Why are you so afraid? (lit. Why are you cowardly?) Do you still have no faith?" 

He questions whether they have any faith at all, and He calls them cowards. The only other place in the Bible the word “coward” is used in …

Revelation 21:8 But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars--their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."

No unrepentant cowards will go to heaven. You see, not only does God require that we fear Him, but He requires that we fear Him alone. We are not permitted to fear anyone or anything else – only God. We all understand that our love belongs to God alone, right? He tells us not to love the world or anything in the world, and if we try to love God and the world, we are committing adultery against God because our love belongs to Him alone. We understand that – our love belongs to Him alone. But do you also realize that our fear also belongs to God alone? We are not allowed to fear anyone or anything else.

Isaiah 51:12-13 I, even I, am he who comforts you. Who are you that you fear mortal men, the sons of men, who are but grass, 13 that you forget the Lord your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth, that you live in constant terror every day because of the wrath of the oppressor, who is bent on destruction? For where is the wrath of the oppressor?

God says, “Who do you think you are, fearing your enemies? You have no right to do that. I am the one who comforts you, so I am the only one worth fearing.”
So, does that mean if you are cornered by thugs in a dark alley it is wrong to be a little nervous? I mean honestly – did Jesus expect the disciples to be perfectly relaxed in the middle of a raging storm at night as their boat was sinking? Didn’t God give us adrenalin for a reason? Didn’t He program us with a fight or flight response so that when there is danger we can avoid dying unnecessarily? I believe the answer is, “yes”. And I don’t think Jesus expected the Disciples in that storm to just be relaxed and calm.
Remember when we studied 1 John.2:15, which says, “Do not love the world or anything in the world”? Or Psalm 73:25 that says, “There is nothing on earth I desire besides you”? How do we reconcile that with passages like 1 Timothy 6:17 that says God created all things for our enjoyment? The way to reconcile those is to realize that there is a right way and a wrong way to enjoy earthly pleasures. If you enjoy the earthly pleasure as an end in itself without reference to God – that is idolatry. But if you see that earthly pleasure as a gesture of God’s love, and you enjoy it in a way that is fellowship with God – then you are not guilty of loving something in the world even though you really, really enjoy that earthly pleasure. Because when you enjoy it that way, your enjoyment of that earthly pleasure is enjoyment of God.
Use earthly threats to train your heart
And in much the same way, there is a right way and a wrong way to be afraid when you face earthly threats. Use earthly threats to train your heart to fear God. Earthly pleasures exist for the purpose of giving us samples of what it is like to be in God’s presence. And earthly dangers exist for the purpose of giving us samples of what it is like to face God’s anger. For example, suppose you are in some legal trouble and it all comes down to a judge who seems to hold your fate in his hand. Remind yourself that he does not hold anything in his hand. God is the only one who holds your wellbeing in His hand. If the judge rules against you, that can mean one of two things. It may mean that God is displeased with you and is using that unfavorable ruling as chastisement. That is something to be afraid of! But on the other hand, God may be very pleased with you, as He was with Job, and He is using the hard ruling as a means of testing and strengthening your faith, or positioning you for future blessing, or using you to display His glory in some special way, or helping you overcome pride, or preparing your heart for greater faith, or any number of possible blessings. And none of that is anything to be afraid of. So the actions of the judge or the mugger or the lab results or any other scary thing should be feared only if they are expressions of God’s disfavor. So if you run into an African lion, you should fear…God. If you are cornered by thugs in an alley, be afraid – not of the muggers hurting you —be afraid of the possibility of their hurting you as a tool of God’s displeasure with you. If your employer fires you because God is displeased with you and is using the loss of your job as a tool of His chastisement, that is to be dreaded. But if the Lord is pleased with you and allows your boss to fire you for some other purpose, that is nothing to be afraid of. Only God is worthy of our fear. If the whole world gathers against you, and if Satan himself confronts you with all his demons, fear God. Use the adrenaline and the pumping heart and the sense of dread – use all that to train your heart – “This is the appropriate way to feel when you face God’s anger.”
Fearing the storm without fearing the Lord
So how do we know the Disciples weren’t doing that? How do we know they were not fearing this storm in the right way – as a symbol of God’s wrath? I mean, didn’t they do exactly what we should do when we are in trouble – go to the Lord and call on Him to save us? Not the way they did it. Look again at what they say to Jesus in verse 38.

38 "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?" 

They are not just asking for help – they are questioning His love. They are accusing Him of not caring. You see, your attitude toward God is hugely important in prayer. Two people can both say the exact same words, “God, save me!” – and one of them is exhibiting faith and the other one is being a faithless coward. When there is anger in your heart toward the Lord, or distress because you question His love – that is evidence of a faithless heart. The Disciples were not using the danger of the sea to teach their hearts to fear the Lord more. They were deathly afraid of the storm but they were not one bit afraid of questioning the Lord’s love. They were fearing the storm instead of fearing the Lord, and I am convinced that is why they are rebuked.

Trust the Lord
So the first application for our lives is simple - fear the Lord, and fear the Lord alone. A second application is this – trust the Lord. When the storm arises in your life, you do not need to panic. Think about this – what caused that storm that day on the Sea of Galilee? The Lord. This world has no power of its own – the Lord sends the wind. He created that storm on purpose to expose the Disciples’ lack of faith, so He could teach them to trust Him. The storms in your life are the work of His hands. Your life is not spinning out of control. The chaos around you is a test. Trust Him in that storm and when the purpose of the test is accomplished He will say, “Peace, be still,” and the storm will be gone.

Hope in the Lord
So fear Him, trust Him, and one more – hope in Him. Remember – part of the purpose of Jesus’ miracles was to show His credentials as Messiah, and to give previews of what His kingdom will someday be like. In order to qualify as Messiah, Jesus had to demonstrate enough power to reverse the curse and bring the creation into subjection.

Psalms 8:3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? … 6 You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet

Psalm 8 praises God for placing all things under the feet of man. But if we look around, that is not what we see. The wind is not under my feet. I cannot control the storms or the waves or even a gentle breeze. How is it that Psalm 8 says everything is subject to man when we can see that it isn’t? The answer is in Hebrews 2:8. In Hebrews 2:8 he quotes that statement from Psalm 8.

Hebrews 2:7-9 You made him a little lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honor 8 and put everything under his feet." In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him. 9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor 

The promise that the creation would be subject to mankind is fulfilled in Jesus. When He returns, He will bring this cursed world under control. He will reverse the curse, and eliminate everything associated with it.

Revelation 21:4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

Whenever something in this world distresses you – when you see injustice, or suffering or disease or death – any time you see something that is not the way it should be – let it increase your hope in that Day when the one who commanded the storm will lift His Hand over the entire creation and say, “Peace, be still.” And there will be a new heavens and a new earth, and all suffering and sorrow and sickness and sadness will be a distant memory.

Benediction   1 Kings 8:56-61  "Praise be to the LORD, who has given rest to his people …57 May the LORD our God be with us as he was with our fathers; may he never leave us nor forsake us. 58 May he turn our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways… 60 so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is God and that there is no other.