From our Sunday service on September 20, 2026, Luke 8:22-56. This is part 16 of our Gospel of Luke series. Watch the full message: Power and Provision – The Gospel of Luke #16 on YouTube.
The disciples have left their fishing business to follow Jesus, but leaving everything behind does not mean they have learned everything about trusting Him. In Luke 8:22-56, they face a storm they cannot control, a man no one can help, sickness no physician can heal, and death itself. Each situation shows them something about the one they have chosen to follow. I want you to see that these are not merely separate displays of power. Together they teach us why we can entrust our lives to Christ. God wants you to know that He has the power and authority to protect and provide for those who follow Him.
The Storm Is Not Beyond Him
Jesus gets into a boat with His disciples and tells them to cross the lake. As they sail, He falls asleep, and a storm comes down upon them. The boat begins filling with water, and their lives are in jeopardy. These men are experienced fishermen, familiar with the lake and its dangers, but their experience cannot solve this problem. They have committed themselves to Christ, yet now they are afraid they will die while doing what He told them to do. Finally they wake Him and cry out for help:
And they came to him, and awoke him, saying, Master, master, we perish. Then he arose, and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water: and they ceased, and there was a calm. And he said unto them, Where is your faith? And they being afraid wondered, saying one to another, What manner of man is this! for he commandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him.
Luke 8:24–25
What is a crisis to the disciples is not a crisis to Jesus. He rebukes the wind and water, and the danger ends. They are amazed that creation obeys Him, but His question turns their attention to something more personal: where is their faith? They had trusted Him enough to leave their livelihood, but in the next frightening situation they had lost sight of His power. The lesson was not that they needed their fishing business after all. The one who had called them could take care of them. Creation had obeyed His command; they needed to learn to trust and obey Him too.
We can make a real commitment to Christ and still discover that our faith is not as strong as we thought. Trouble does not disappear simply because we have decided to follow Him. These disciples were traveling with Jesus when the storm came, and they could see the danger much more clearly than they could see how He would deal with it. Through the miracle, He shows them again that He can protect and provide for His followers. When we’re with Jesus where He wants us to be, we’re in the safest place we can ever be.
The Man No One Could Help
On the other side of the lake, another frightening situation waits for them. A man tormented by demons meets Jesus. He has been living among the tombs, driven away from ordinary life, and even chains cannot restrain him. Matthew tells us that there were two afflicted men, while Luke concentrates on one. The surrounding community knows the danger and avoids these men, but Jesus approaches. What other people see as a situation to escape, He sees as an opportunity to help someone who has suffered for a long time.
The demons recognize Jesus as the Son of God and beg Him not to torment them. When He asks the man’s name, the answer is Legion, because many demons have entered him. They plead not to be sent into the deep and ask permission to enter a nearby herd of pigs. They know that Jesus has authority over them. He allows them to enter the herd, which rushes down the steep place into the lake and drowns. The people tending the pigs run to report what has happened, and the community comes out to see.
Then they went out to see what was done; and came to Jesus, and found the man, out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid.
Luke 8:35
The sight that frightens them now is the man restored. The one they could not control is clothed, in his right mind, and sitting at Jesus’ feet. They know how hopeless his situation appeared, and they recognize that anyone who could change him has power beyond anything they can manage. Yet rather than welcome Jesus, they ask Him to leave. They have seen Him heal the unhealable and control the uncontrollable, but they want nothing to do with that authority. The healed man responds differently. He begs to stay with Jesus and go with Him, but Jesus gives him work to do at home:
Return to thine own house, and shew how great things God hath done unto thee. And he went his way, and published throughout the whole city how great things Jesus had done unto him.
Luke 8:39
This man has not been rejected or told that he cannot serve. Following Jesus will look different for him than it does for the men in the boat. They are going from town to town with Christ; he is to tell his own household and community what God has done in his life. Not everybody is called to stand before a crowd and preach. Sometimes our ministry is more private and personal, showing friends and family how Christ has changed us. What matters is not whether our calling looks like someone else’s, but whether we do what He calls us to do. Notice also that the great things God has done are the great things Jesus has done: His divinity is displayed in the man’s testimony.
Faith in the One Who Heals
When Jesus returns, the people welcome Him, and Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue, falls at His feet. His only daughter, about twelve years old, is dying, and he asks Jesus to come to his house. As they go, the crowd presses around them, and another person in desperate need comes near. A woman has suffered from bleeding for twelve years. She has spent everything seeking help from physicians, but no one has been able to heal her. She comes behind Jesus, touches the border of His garment, and is healed immediately.
Jesus stops and asks who touched Him. To the disciples, the question seems strange because people are pressing against Him on every side. But He knows that power has gone out from Him and that someone has been healed. The woman comes trembling, falls before Him, and tells everyone why she touched Him and what happened. Jesus does not let her leave with the wrong understanding of her healing:
And he said unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.
Luke 8:48
It was not the clothing itself that healed her. It was her faith in the Messiah. She had come believing that Jesus could do what no one else had done, and He sends her away in peace. This is another area of life in which His power is sufficient. The storm obeys Him, the demons submit to Him, and sickness cannot resist Him. Yet while this woman receives comfort, Jairus hears news that seems to put his own need beyond help. A messenger arrives to say that his daughter has died and he should no longer trouble the Master.
Even Death Must Yield
Jesus answers that message by telling Jairus not to fear, but to believe, and his daughter will be made whole. The woman has just been healed through faith, and now Jairus is called to trust the same Lord even after being told it is too late. At the house, people are weeping and mourning. When Jesus says that the girl is not dead but sleeping, they laugh at Him because they know she has died. Their certainty about death leaves no room for confidence in what He can do. He puts them out and takes the girl by the hand:
And he put them all out, and took her by the hand, and called, saying, Maid, arise. And her spirit came again, and she arose straightway: and he commanded to give her meat. And her parents were astonished: but he charged them that they should tell no man what was done.
Luke 8:54–56
Her spirit returns, and she gets up immediately. The one who commands wind and water also commands life and death. Jesus cares for this little girl, and He even tells them to give her food. His power is not separate from His love for those He helps. The family who could do nothing to save her now sees Him restore her. If Jesus can raise this girl from the dead, then let me tell you, He can raise you from the dead at the last day. He can give you a new life in the new heaven and the new earth in the age to come.
The disciples did not always understand what Jesus was doing. The healed man did not receive the ministry role he first asked for. Jairus was told that his need had become hopeless. None of those things put the situation beyond Christ. Our part is to follow Him where He calls us, whether that means leaving things behind to go with Him or serving Him among the people who already know us. His authority reaches every area we have seen in this passage: creation, the spiritual enemy, sickness, and death. God wants us to know that He has the power and authority to protect us, provide for us, and carry us through it. Will you trust Him to provide for you?
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