Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Can You Trust Jesus With Everything? | The Gospels | Matthew 8:18–34

Episode Date: October 13, 2026

Who do you think Jesus really is? What does his authority over the storm and the spiritual world reveal about him? And what would it look like to trust him with every part of your life? In today’s episode, Tanya explores Matthew 8:18–34 and shows us that Jesus is more than a teacher or healer; he is the King with authority over all creation and. is worthy of our total trust. Want to become a more consistent Bible reader? Download our free Ten Minute Bible Guide and start building a simple, sustainable habit of meeting with God through his word. Grab your guide here. Read the Bible with us! This year, we’re exploring the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—and it's never too late to join! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passage: Matthew 8:18–34

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmuth. Okay, now if you were going to give up your life, like if you were going to get through your job and you were going to sell your house to go follow someone, wouldn't you want to truly know them? Wouldn't you want to have evidence to know that they were trustworthy? That's what Jesus is doing in our passage today.

He is giving people the ability to truly know him and who he is and evidence to trust him. But let's back out for a minute to remind ourselves where we are in this year of the Gospels. So we're in Matthew, and Matthew is one of the four Gospels, which were written over about 20 to 30 years to show Jesus' life and mission as he came to earth to reign as the fulfillment of Israel's true king. Now Matthew has arranged stories of Jesus' ministry to show both that he is. the Messiah. He's the king in the line of David, and he is also Emmanuel, God with us. So Matthew's stories are going to focus on those themes. Jesus is busy doing God's mission work in the lives of sinful and hurting people. And he is confronting evil, but he's also creating a new family. And this is a family of unified believers, where everyone, Jew and Gentile, poor and enslaved, are

welcome to repent and follow him. Now, the interesting thing about this family that Jesus is welcoming is that it's an upside down family. Now, you may feel like you live in an upside down family too, but probably for different reasons. This is an upside down family because rather than gaining power and strength on their own to face and overcome the world and its problems, they are called to serve, to lay down their lives for their neighbors, to love them. And it is this kind of love that will demonstrate and continue the power of Jesus over the dark and evil forces in the world. So today we're in Matthew chapter 8 verses 18 to 34. This is part of a longer section in all of chapters 8 through 10, where Matthew uses a series of nine stories to illustrate how Jesus was bringing

this kind of upside-down kingdom into the lives of the people. These are stories of Jesus bringing God's power to restore and heal people who are sick and hurting and sinful. Now, these nine stories are divided into three groups of three or triads. And between each triad, there's an interlude where Jesus talks about what it looks like and what it means to follow him. Today, we pick up in one of those interludes, between the first and second triad. add. And then we're going to cover the fourth and fifth story, the wind and the waves that obey Jesus and the demons that are driven out by Jesus. Jesus is on a mission, and he's inviting us to see who he is and why we can trust him. So let's dive in. Now Matthew begins by setting up the story. This is one you

might be familiar with. He's going to come back to later. It's the story where the disciples are in the boat during the storm. So starting in verse 18, it says, when Jesus saw a large crowd around him, he gave the order to go to the other side of the sea. A scribe approached him and said, Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go. Jesus told him, foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the son of man has no place to lay his head. Lord, another of his disciples said, first let me go bury my father. But Jesus told him, follow me and let the dead. And let the dead, bury their own dead. So why did Jesus use these examples? The disciples sound like they're being kind of naive and agreeing to follow Jesus wherever he'll go. And then Jesus is using these strange

examples about foxes have dens, and birds have nests, but I have nowhere to lay my head, and also follow me and let the dead bury their own dead. So to understand this, let's talk about the part, follow me and let the dead bury their own dead. Think of it. Think of it. about your morning routine. What's the first thing you do every morning that never changes? Do you brush your teeth? Do you put in your contacts? Do you pour a cup of coffee? What would it take to change that morning routine so you don't do those things? Well, probably something that's urgent or catastrophic, like in a catastrophic event that got you out of bed and changed the course of your entire day. For the devout Jew, the first thing they did every morning was say the basic Jewish

prayer. The words were familiar and they were woven into every fiber of their being. It was just part of their rhythm. But the only thing that would take precedence over starting the morning with the Jewish prayer would be to have to arrange and attend your father's funeral. That would come first. So we would have expected Jesus to say, okay, go do that. Arrange and attend your father's funeral. and then come follow me. But that's not what he's saying. Instead, Jesus is using this illustration to show that there is something urgent, even more urgent than your father's funeral, that you should make the absolute center and priority of your life. And it's the gospel story. Jesus is bringing forth a groundbreaking call to follow him. When the enthusiastic disciple says he will follow

Jesus wherever he goes, Jesus wants him to know what he's in for. To follow the son of man will include both authority through healing, like their saying happen, and healing through suffering, as he will display on the cross. Now, nobody at this stage quite understood what this meant, though they found it compelling enough to actually physically follow him and crowd around him. And this is how the stage is set for the next two stories, Jesus' authority over the wind and waves and Jesus driving out the demons. So let's talk about the wind and the waves. We should note that Matthew begins by saying in verse 23, as he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. We see Matthew tying this back to the theme of what it looks like to follow Jesus.

Now, as they're in the boat, a violent storm comes up on the sea, and the boat is swarmed by waves. But Jesus kept sleeping. The disciples will come up, saying, Lord, save us, we're going to die. At this point, Jesus rebukes them. He says to them, picking up in verse 26, why are you afraid you of little faith. Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. Now, in ancient literature, the sea was a symbol of this untamable force. It was unknown to them. It was dark. It was murky. There were storms. It was even more so for the Jewish people who were not as seafaring as their Phoenician neighbors. Now, you probably know the feeling if you've stood near the ocean that you can't help but feel small compared to, you know, the never-eastern.

ending horizon and the movement of the waves at your feet, it really is a stunning reminder of our powerlessness as mere human beings. But this story shows that Jesus is the one who has authority over the sea. Remember in the Old Testament, God had the power to part the Red Sea, and now Jesus is demonstrating that same power. See what he's saying here? He doesn't have to call in anyone else for help. He has the authority to calm the wind and the waves. The disciples, who were familiar with the story of the Red Sea, and then also the story of Jonah, where God commanded the sea,

would link this authority that Jesus has over the waves to the power that God has displayed in the Old Testament. So when Jesus rebukes them for their faith, he's calling them to trust him as the sovereign king, the son of man, the one with authority. So to follow him truly would mean submitting their needs and desires to his authority and allowing him to heal their biggest hurt, the sin that separated them from their Heavenly

Father. So the question for us here is, who do you think Jesus is? Is he a great healer and teacher? And do you approach him to guide you and take care of your physical problems? Or is he a sovereign king? The one who you trust with your thoughts and your desires, your finances, the way you spend your time, your family members, because he has the power and authority to rescue you, and to rescue them and to restore you into a member of his family. Not just someday when you die and go to heaven. Not just someday, but right now as you live your life in Christ. Now the last illustration in today's passage is when Jesus drives the demons out of the men and into a herd of pigs.

Why is this strange story here? Okay, let's remember Matthew's themes to show that Jesus is the Messiah King and Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. So this story is an even more vivid version of the story about the sea. In the wild sea, the wind and the waves were at their worst, and they were creating a storm that was out of control. But this is inside the demon possessed men. For whatever reason, they have been taken over by forces out of their control. The point of the story is that Jesus, in all his power, has authority over all of creation. The things far away, the things close. spy, he has authority over nature, over disease, and over the evil spiritual forces that are at work

every day. Jesus is more than a great teacher. He is more than a moral code. He is more than somebody who can tell us how to draw closer to God. He is the son of man who has come to bring heaven to earth. He has come to demonstrate the power of God in both his suffering and his resurrection. to bring us to the Father, he's going to embody the sin that separated us from our Father on the cross, and he's coming to dwell with us, Emmanuel. So, do you trust Jesus? What areas of your life are you not trusting His authority? And what would it look like to give that area over to Him? To give it to Him today, again tomorrow, and then the next. Jesus is not just telling us, but showing us the following him is the most reasonable, groundbreaking and upside down thing we can do all at once.

And he's showing us why we can trust him to do it.