If Jesus Calmed the Storm for the Disciples, Why Isn’t He Calming the Storms in My Life?

If Jesus called the storm for the disciples, why isn't he calming the storms in my life? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Well, hi there.

Happy Friday. I'm Bill Meyer, along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. You can call us right now with your question. Here's our phone number. It's 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. We'll be taking calls for the next 25 minutes or so, so now's the time to call. And you can also post your question on our Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts.

And you can watch Adriel live in the studio right now on YouTube and send us a message through our YouTube channel. You can always email us your question at questionsatcorechristianity.com. First up today, let's go to Calvin calling in from Florida. Calvin, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Hey, thank you for taking my call.

Thank you. I'm a born-again believer, and my question is coming from Matthew 28, Acts 2-38, Romans, I think, Chapter 6, talking about baptism. I believe in Jesus Christ, Son of God, I believe in baptism, I was baptized. And my question is, I've heard that for some preachers, say you have to say the sinner's prayer, and then others say you have to just believe, repent, confess. And I read, that's what I read in the Bible, you know, believe, repent, confess. So my question is, how is the sinner's prayer valid, or what's the validity in the sinner's prayer?

Calvin, thank you for that question. Yeah, I mean, so is the sinner's prayer like one of the steps in the process of salvation, quote unquote. I mean, it's something that an individual has to do to pray a specific prayer in order to receive Jesus Christ. This is something that, you know, a number of evangelists have done. You know, people will go up and do these crusades, or even, you know, a pastor after his service, inviting people up and saying, you know, we want you to say this prayer, you can repeat after me, and usually it goes something like, you know, I know I'm a sinner, I need you, Jesus, please come into my life, forgive my sins, amen. There's nothing objectionable about those words, but I think there can be a problem, Calvin, if people are putting their trust, not in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, but in something that they do. And strangely enough, I think for many, they viewed the sinner's prayer, they view the sinner's prayer as this work that they do through which they obtain salvation. So they pray this prayer at the end of a Christian rally or something like that, and they think, okay, I guess I'm saved now. But biblically speaking, as you say, we're called to repent and believe in Jesus Christ. That's what we see in the scriptures. Now, sometimes people will go to places like Revelation chapter three, the words that Jesus speaks to the church in Laodicea, where he said in verse 20, Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him and he with me. And they'll say, you see, Jesus is standing at the door of your heart, knocking, you just need to receive him to say this sinner's prayer. That's really taking that verse out of context, because there Jesus is addressing a group of people who already professed the faith, the church in Laodicea, calling them to repentance. Really, so, you know, what I would say is when we're sharing the gospel, preaching the gospel, it's not a bad thing to encourage people to pray, to call upon the name of the Lord. But, you know, an individual can believe and receive Christ without ever saying the words of the quote unquote sinner's prayer. I think of what the apostle Paul said in Romans chapter 10.

This is a great place to go. He lays it out here so clearly. Verse 9, because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For what the heart one believes and is justified and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

For the scripture says, everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame, for there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call upon him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. And so that's what we call people to do is to call on the name of the Lord and receive Christ by faith. Calvin, thank you for your call. God bless you.

Hey Calvin, appreciate you. Thank you for listening to Core Christianity. We'd love to take your call. If you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life, we'll be opening up our phone lines here for the next 20 minutes or so. You can call us at 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. We'd also like to invite you to join a special group of people that we call our Inner Core, and we'll tell you about a special event for Inner Core members, which is coming up next month. Yeah, if you benefit from the answers we give on the show, we'd love to invite you to become a member of the Inner Core. As an Inner Core member, you'll receive a signed copy of the book Core Christianity by Dr. Michael Horton, exclusive updates and bonus content from the team. And when you join the Inner Core in the month of March, we'll send you an invitation to join us on a live virtual meeting with me, some of the members of the Core team, and other Inner Core members on Wednesday, April 13th at 8 p.m. Eastern Time, 5 p.m. Pacific. It'll be an opportunity for you to ask questions about the Bible, the Christian life, or about the Core Christianity team and organization. If you're an Inner Core member already, please be on the lookout for an invitation in your email.

That virtual meeting with Adriel is set for April 13th, 8 p.m. Eastern Time, 5 p.m. Pacific. You might want to jot that down, and you can become an Inner Core member by signing up with a recurring donation of $25 or more. Your support allows us to continue sharing the gospel and answering those tough questions about the Christian faith, and this program goes around the world through our live radio broadcast, our web articles, our Bible studies. To join in that video call, just head over to corechristianity.com forward slash inner core and sign up there. Well, let's go to a voicemail that came in from one of our listeners earlier this week. Yes, thank you for taking this question.

I've listened to your show for a couple years now. I've never been brave enough to ask a question, but this one I wanted to. A local pastor gave an incredible sermon the other day over the book of John, and the disciples stranded in the boat and being scared and needing comfort. Once the disciples cried out for him in comfort, he was there. I've heard many preachers talk about, as soon as you cry out for the Lord, he'll be there to comfort you. Then I've heard other ones say that he may not comfort you the way you want until you're deceased. I just really need to know, unfortunately, over 900 days into a divorce process that I desperately do not want, and everything that's gone bad has gone bad. Many prayers haven't been answered, but one prayer I've always asked every day is I just one day wanted to feel his comfort that he was there next to me.

To be honest, I've never felt that. Yes, I need to know biblically where that is when you cry out for God's comfort. Thank you for taking the question. I'm thankful that you gave us a call, and just with everything going on, I don't know, obviously, the details of your situation, but I want to pray for you that the Lord would help you, cause you to experience that comfort that we do hear about in scripture. Father, I pray for this man who is looking to be comforted by you, by the grace of your spirit. Lord, we don't know the details of his situation, but we do know that your word says that you are near to all those who call upon you, who call upon you in truth. I pray for him as he comes to you, and as he calls upon you crying out for your help, for the comfort that you give through your Holy Spirit, that he would experience, Lord, your presence, that you would guide him and give him wisdom, and Lord, give him a sense of your love, especially, Lord, in Jesus, your Son. God, we thank you for that demonstration of your love toward us in Christ, and I pray that this brother would know that, would experience that, Lord, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and I ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. Well, brother, there are so many times in the scriptures where the psalmist, for example, talks about crying out to the Lord and experiencing deliverance, experiencing a sense of comfort. One psalm, for example, that I think of is Psalm 18. In verse 6, the psalmist says, In my distress I called upon the Lord, to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry came to him and reached his ears.

The first thing I want to say, Jesus, when you call upon the name of the Lord, even in the midst of despair, when you call upon him in faith, your prayer reaches his temple. He hears it in his ears, if you will, and he does comfort his people. Sometimes that comfort comes through a sense of God's presence, the grace of the Holy Spirit.

Sounds like that's what you're wrestling with. I've just not felt that before. In other instances, the Lord comforts us through his people, through others, brothers and sisters in Christ who can encourage us, and this is something we see specifically in the book of 2 Corinthians. In 2 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 3, listen to what Paul said, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. Paul says the God that we serve, the God that we know is the God of all comfort, and he comforts us so that we might be able to comfort one another, so that we might be able to comfort each other. If you actually go a little bit further in 2 Corinthians chapter 7, Paul talks about an instance where he experienced this comfort through others in the body of Christ.

2 Corinthians chapter 7 verse 5, For even when we came into Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted at every turn, fighting without and fear within, he said. But God who comforts the downcast comforted us by the coming of Titus. In other words, God used, Titus Paul says, to comfort me. And so one thing I want to say to you is, God may be using people around you, maybe even me right now, to extend his grace and comfort to you, to say, hey, God is there still. When we cry out to him, he hears us, he hears you, and he is near to the brokenhearted.

I don't know the details of the situation with your divorce, but I can say to you that when we turn to the Lord, he hears us. And when we cling to him by faith, we experience and can experience his grace and his mercy. And so I hope that you're in a place where there are people around you who can encourage you and comfort you. If you're not in a church, if you don't experience the comfort of the saints, if you will, because you're not a part of a local Christian church, I would say, well, that's one of the ways that God intends to comfort you and for you to experience his presence and his goodness in your life. But I pray that you would have that, but also that you would experience, as you call on the Lord, the comfort that he gives through his spirit. And may God be with you and guide you, and may you know that the Lord hears your prayers when you come to him through Jesus, and that he is there, and that he's merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon him. So continue to call on the name of the Lord. What a great passage from 2 Corinthians. Adriel, thank you so much for sharing that. It applies to all of us, especially if we know someone who is going through a difficult time through pain or grief, to reach out with Christ's love and be his hands and feet to them.

So thank you for that. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We would love to get your call if you have a question about the Bible, the Christian life, or how your faith intersects with what's going on in today's culture. Our phone lines are open for the next 10 minutes or so. 833-THE-CORE is the number. You can always leave us a voicemail 24 hours a day at that number too.

1-833-843-2673. Let's go to Stephen calling in from Nebraska. Stephen, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Hi, yeah, I currently work at a Christian treatment facility, and I'm a recovering addict as well, but I feel pulled to preach the word, and I already do it at work, and I'm just wondering what would be the best—I don't have a lot of money, and I got, you know, a family and stuff—what would be the best way to try and further education so I could equip myself better to, you know, maybe be a pastor one day or something?

Hey, Stephen, thank you for calling, and may the Lord bless you as you continue to seek him and as you serve him there in that Christian facility. You know, the first thing I would say is what the apostle Paul says in 1 Timothy chapter 3, the saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. And so what I would want to say to you first, Stephen, is this is a noble aspiration that you have, the desire to serve the church, to preach the gospel.

That is the good thing. There's nothing more powerful than the message of the gospel. And then Paul begins to give a number of qualifications for this individual, what this individual should be like in terms of his character. Therefore, an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well with all dignity, keeping his children submissive for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? He must not be a recent convert or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders so that he may not fall into disgrace into the snare of the devil. I would encourage you to meditate upon that section of scripture there, 1 Timothy 3, verses 1 through 7, in thinking about your own life, in this sense of calling that you have, in loving and caring for your family and providing for them, in cultivating a life of humility and submission to the Lord, a life of holiness. You want to be an example for the flock and pursue those things in the context of the local church so that as you're serving Jesus in the local church, the church that you're a part of, and using the gifts that he's given to you for the building up of the body, for the edification of the body, others are also saying, boy, Stephen really just is a blessing to the church. He's so gifted when he teaches. He's able to teach.

As Paul said there in 1 Timothy 3, we really think that maybe God is working in his life. And if that happens, as you see that, then continuing to pursue maybe further education. There are seminaries that you can go to, even some seminaries that will do online things to try to make it a little bit more convenient for those of us who have a family with children. But definitely that's somewhere where you're going to want to grow in terms of your understanding of the word, your understanding of sound Christian doctrine.

And so I would say, devote yourself to all of those things. Study to show yourself approved as a workman before the Lord rightly handling the word of truth and pursue this sense of calling that you have in the context of Christian community. We don't call ourselves as individuals to the pastorate. I don't say I'm called to this, I'm just going to become a pastor. No, the calling is internal in one sense. We have this desire and it sounds like you have that, but there's also the external call that comes from the church, the people around you who are saying, boy, we really think that the Lord is at work in your life in this way and we're supporting this. And that's what you're going to want to have in place as well, Stephen. And may God bless you as you seek to honor him with your life and as you use the gifts that he's given to you for the glory of Christ. Stephen, thanks so much for your call and for your great question.

This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We love hearing from our Canadian listeners. Duncan is on the line from Ottawa, Ontario. Duncan, thanks for calling. What's your question for Adriel?

Good afternoon, gentlemen. A group of us that meet on Zoom were discussing cults the other day and my question to both of you is, what do you know about a sect called the Assemblies of Yahweh? What do they teach and what do they believe? Hey Duncan, thank you so much for your question.

Can I just ask you a quick follow-up here? Where did you first hear about this group? Well, there's a radio broadcast called the Assemblies of Yahweh that has been on for years. It just seems kind of weird. They keep quoting the Torah and, well, I don't know. There's just something really odd about them.

Sure. They have a statement of faith that's pretty concerning to me and it sounds to me like you're picking up on some of those things as well, but there is an emphasis on the law on Torah, as you say, but in a sense that we would certainly disagree with, sort of living under the old covenant rules and regulations. In fact, the very first tenet of their faith, they say, we affirm that in order to interpret the inspired scriptures correctly, we must use the Old Testament as the basis for our faith. We must therefore interpret the New Testament through the teachings of the old. Well, right there, that raises all sorts of red flags because as revelation unfolds or unfolded throughout redemptive history, we're given a clear vision about God's purpose and plan throughout the world and for the world. Typically, and this is the right way to understand it, we interpret the Old Testament in light of the clear revelation in the New Testament.

Now, there's never any contradiction there, but it sounds to me like they've got things backwards and beyond that, part of what they're doing is going back to some of those old covenant rules and regulations, the food laws, for example, and putting people under that yoke, under that burden. Well, that sounds to me very much like the heresy that the apostle Paul talked about when he wrote his letter to the Galatians. There are false gospels out there, friends.

I mean, it's so important, and Duncan, I appreciate you asking this question because it's so important for each of us to be discerning. There's no more important question, I think, that we could answer than what is the gospel and how do I understand it truly because it strikes at the very vitals of the faith. If we get the gospel wrong, we are in serious trouble, and that's precisely what the apostle Paul said to the Galatians. He says in verse 6 of chapter 1, I'm astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one that we preached to you, let him be accursed.

This is why it's so serious. Paul's saying, let that person be eternally condemned if they're twisting the gospel, if they're preaching a false gospel. As we have said before, so now I say again, he said, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one that you received, let him be accursed. The problem is what people want to do today is add to the gospel, and it seems to me like that's precisely what this group, the Assemblies of Yahweh is doing through a misunderstanding of scripture and a misinterpretation of scripture. As I said, they're sort of reading everything through the lens of the Old Testament. So they're going to have a bunch of problems in terms of interpretation there.

So I would say it's good to be discerning and to ask these kinds of questions. We really can't keep up with every new sect that comes along the way. That's why it's so important for us to be grounded in the truth and what the true gospel is. God bless you, Duncan. Amen. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We receive emails here every day, and if you have a question, you can always email us at questions at corechristianity.com. Here's one from Jason, and he says in Leviticus chapter five, it says that anyone who touches a leper becomes unclean, but in Matthew eight, Jesus touches a leper and isn't considered unclean.

Why is that? That's a really good question. Well, you know who dealt with the lepers in the Old Testament in the book of Leviticus? It was the priests. And in the gospels, Jesus is the one who is dealing with lepers in one sense, demonstrating that he is the great and final high priest of his people. And you see Jesus dealing with people or touching people who have leprosy throughout the gospels and cleansing them and healing them.

I like to go to the gospel of Mark, for example. In Mark chapter one, verses 40 and following, Jesus cleanses a leper by touching this leper. And then a little bit later in Mark's gospel, Jesus heals this woman who has this issue, a flow of blood.

You see that in Mark chapter five. And then just a little bit after that, Jesus touches this little girl, Jairus' daughter, who had died and raises her from the dead. He's dealing with the ritual impurities, if you will, that you heard about in the book of Leviticus, leprosy, blood, death. I mean, those things would make you unclean in the Old Testament. But Jesus, the Lord, the great high priest of his people, God himself sort of radiates with holiness so that when he touches the unclean, he doesn't become unclean.

Instead, you know what happens? They become cleansed, healed through an encounter with almighty God. And I think that's one of the things that the gospels is highlighting there. Jesus is our great high priest and through him, we are cleansed. Thanks for listening to Core Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, visit us at CoreChristianity.com and click on offers in the menu bar or call us at 1-833-843-2673. That's 833, the core. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this program and be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's word together.