That's a wonderful song. You're going to get us ready to hear the text. It's about to be read because the disciples wonder if Jesus cares for them and we just heard That we know that he cares for us. So we're going to turn to mark four if you have your Bibles if you're looking at one of the Pew Bibles. It's on page 839 Gospel of Mark is right after the Gospel of Matthew and the New Testament We're going to be looking today at Mark chapter 4 verses 35 and Following and we're going to see Jesus's response as he leads his disciples Into a storm now before we read the word. I just hope that this morning we can put ourselves into disciples shoes And just think about what it would be like to not know exactly who Jesus was and to not know exactly Why he came and to see the surprise that the disciples have in the midst of this text So if you would with me, please stand for the reading of God's Word From Mark chapter 4 verses 35 and following. This is God's Word On that day when evening had come he said to them Let us go across to the other side and leaving the crowd. They took him with him in the boat just as he was and Other boats were with him and the great windstorm arose and the waves were breaking into the boat so that the boat was already Filling but he was in the stern asleep on the cushion and they woke him and said to him teacher Do you not care that we are perishing and He awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea peace Be still and the wind ceased and there was a great calm He said to them. Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith and They were filled with great fear and said to one another Who then is this that even the wind and sea Obey him join with me in prayer heavenly Father We pray that you would come and bless the reading of your word and the preaching of your word We pray O Lord that your spirit would give us ears to hear and eyes to see and Lord that we would know as we leave this room This morning who it is that calms the wind and the sea We pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior Amen you may be seated It was November 29th of 1981 and a young man by the name of William Thomas what they call a green horn in the crabbing industry Step foot for the first time on the St. Patrick 158 foot crabbing boat in the Gulf of Alaska Now he was excited. He was in college. He thought boy three or four weeks in the Gulf of Alaska catching crab could net me close to $70,000. I Want a job like that so it's rare But he just went up there he hitchhiked he got on he got a job in the first night that he was out in The Gulf of Alaska on the St. Patrick with 11 other folks so 12 people in all this crabbing vessel a big storm comes up And this storm had 93 mile-hour winds. That's a strong storm We've seen some of those with even stronger winds come here recently in the United States, but 93 mile-and-hour winds The water is 36 degrees The waves were over 50 feet tall and One after another up the wave down the trough Up the wave down the trough They're thinking that perhaps this storm might be it for them and they're scared literally scared to death So they get the life raft out they put it on deck and they're ready to have it go just in case But right when they get the life raft ready what they call a rogue wave if you've ever heard of one of those came It's a wave that side swipes the boat rather than going up and down. It comes perpendicular and this wave was over a hundred feet tall Scary It broke everything in the boat it broke out the windows in the wheelhouse It actually made the boat turn over on its side now the 12 people on crew there were standing on the wheelhouse Wondering if the ship was going to go down and knowing that it would They realized that they didn't have the life raft anymore and All they had were their safety suits to put on so all 12 of them got together They had a rope they tied themselves together because they said our best chance of survival is to stay together and So they jumped into the water together 12 of them and 36 degree water and there they sat in the middle of the night with 93 Mile-and-hour winds blistering their face with salt water and they're wondering are they going to make it through this? Not only that over and over 50 foot waves continue to pummel them and One by one they drift off to sleep If you know anything about cold water when you drift off to sleep, that's not good and When your body temperature reaches a certain degrees you basically have a heart attack The blood is too cold to go through your system and one by one they fell asleep and died 20 hours later Two of them were found by the Coast Guard Coast Guard One of the things that they did throughout this whole experience was say the Lord's prayer Over and over and over and question if anybody's out there If God exists does he care that we are in this situation? Two of them made it out to tell their story Well more than that made it out to tell the story here in our text with Mark 4 And it brings to us a question that many have that are outside of the Christian faith that wonder If the God that you say exists they say the followers of Jesus Why do these things happen to us and Perhaps this morning if you are a follower of Jesus. It's encouraging for you to see that it was disciples It was those who had been intimately involved with Jesus's life and ministry who were closest to him who asked Teacher do you care? And so we're going to see this morning that Jesus does care and what he did to show us That he does the theme for this morning is this Jesus often leads us into times of crisis and despair in order that we might grow in our understanding Of who he is So first we're going to see that Jesus is the one who calls them into the storm now if you look previously in Mark 4 You can go back and maybe read it this afternoon just for some casual reading. There are three times where Jesus is teaching And he says the kingdom of God is like The kingdom of God is like the kingdom of God is like and he goes on to explain it And you wonder if the disciples are sitting there saying is the kingdom of God like this? This storm Jesus if you're bringing in the kingdom why are your people going through this? But Jesus is the one who leads them if you notice in verse 35 look with me It says on that day when evening had come he said to them. That's Jesus says to them Let us go across to the other side He knows what they're going to face and he calls them into it Jesus does He calls his disciples to go through it and notice this it says when evening had come all day long They've been teaching about the kingdom meaning with other people. They're exhausted God himself Jesus is so exhausted that he's sleeping on a cushion the disciples Exhausted and Jesus says go End of the storm Now, maybe some of you who have kids or have had kids can think about the times and the evenings where You've had a hard day at work You're exhausted and you you get ready to put down the kids You put down the kids and you can just hear the door when you're closing it and you hear the click and you say
You love your kids you love them to death but it is such a good sound when you hear that door close And you think I'm gonna go I'm gonna talk with my wife. I'm gonna go talk with my husband We're gonna rest together. We're gonna get a good night's rest and then right when you put your head on that pillow Mommy daddy They're crying out for help and you know that your rest has been Interrupted the rest of the disciples is being interrupted not by someone needing attention in a bed But by a storm that will threaten their life That Jesus calls them into the storm when they're exhausted which goes to show yes with Jesus came the coming of the kingdom He says that But it doesn't promise that when we're tired that storms won't come But not only did Jesus send them out notice this in verse 36 He sent them out with each other and with him He says and leaving the crowd they took him with them in the boat just as he was and then it says and other boats were with him He knows that he's calling them into a storm and he wants them to be surrounded with other followers as well But most importantly, he calls them into the storm with himself Is that good news for disciples and followers of Jesus? That whatever storm he causes us to face whether that be a life-threatening situation Which it was here in this text or something even smaller than that that no matter what he calls us to endure Because he doesn't promise us that we'll never go through those things Whatever he promises to and it calls us to endure he promises one to be with us and for followers of Jesus the entire community of Christ is with you if one suffers we all suffer if one needs help We all need to join in to give them help as they go through whatever they're going through But Jesus has promised to never forsake us never to leave us and we see that being true in this text. They're enduring a storm But he's with them Not only does he call them to endure the storm the storm will expose how little How little these disciples really knew them now this story actually happened We can apply it to our lives with the different situations But for them it wasn't a metaphor for stress or for a hard day They were actually facing death Life no more and they're wondering if Jesus cares now think about this I don't know if any of you are up early in the day or maybe later on in the evening when the sun's going down if you drive Across Veterans Bridge a lot of time when you look at the Tennessee River if it's really early in the morning or getting later on at night It's usually very calm. It's usually just glassy That's the time to take a boat on the river if you want to it's not too choppy But these disciples being professional fisherman a lot of them were new that in the evening time It was rare for windstorms to come so the fact that one is coming and the fact that it's threatening their life is Extremely rare. Why would Jesus call them to go out in the midst of this? But notice that what they had spent their life on and what their security in many ways was found in was Sinking look in verse 37 A great windstorm arose and the waves were breaking into the boat so that the boat was already filling when all else has failed I'm sure they tried the paddle. I'm sure they tried to get the water out of the boat They went to Jesus Because they knew that with him was their only hope Not only was it a real life and death crisis that Jesus called them to endure, but it made them wonder if you see in verse 38 If Jesus cared now, let me just put a scenario into your minds I'm going to use the restaurant that I'm familiar with you can plug your own in there Joel Tric very good friend of mine has really made me enjoy a restaurant called Los Margaritas. It's just across the river and they have great Mexican food there and They have some very spicy Mexican food there and I'm really not a fan of spicy food Now let's say I go there and I say Joel What what will you have me eat? What's the best thing on the menu here? And he says oh, this is really good now what I don't really know about Joel is he really likes spicy food and He's not really going to warn me about this. He's going to say it's good So the waiter comes he takes my order and I said okay, this meal right here. Is it really spicy in the waiter? Being used to this kind of food says oh, it's pretty mild. Don't worry about it. You'll be just fine I Get my meal. I have a glass of water. I take one sip that water's gone Because the meal is so spicy And I wait and I wait and I wait where's my waiter? I need some more water. This is killing me What if the waiter never showed up I go to the kitchen. He's not there. I go up to the front. He's not there Well, what do you do in a restaurant when that's a situation? You go to the manager? Can I see the manager? I got a I got a complaint to file That is precisely what the disciples are doing with Jesus They are upset. They are frustrated. They are angry and if you look at their question I will say this in verse 38 says teacher. Do you not care that we are Parishing it is less a question and it is more of an accusation They were accusing Jesus the Son of God for not caring for them Come on. He's leading him into a storm. He's asleep on the cushion. I could do better than this and they're filing a complaint Have you ever done that with the Lord? Has he ever brought you into a situation where you really wonder? Does he care? And then it goes from actually wondering to actually being embittered and saying I can't believe that he's making me go through this if he is in a sense The manager of the universe. I'm filing a complaint with what he's making me walk through If you've never been there, I'm Bold enough to say you probably will be sometime There are things that come that cause us to question whether or not he cares Here's my point When we have no clue who Jesus is it will be that much easier to question if he cares Now, why do I say that? This is an assumption I'm making but more and more as you look through the American evangelical mindset It's becoming less and less in a sense of Christian We really don't we really not pass it too much more about praying We're really not passionate about developing a desire for scripture and to be in it and as that moves on We can go through the motions as a Christian church But we can no go no less and less and less of Jesus So that the less we really know of him When we go through a crisis whatever else that might be it will be that much easier to question if he really does care And to bring an accusation to the very God of the universe. Let me put it in another way the less we know Jesus The more we will tend to think he doesn't care So when the trials come what's your immediate thought about Jesus? Or we're going to see that Jesus actually invites his disciples to know him more but before we get there Some of us I'm sure are not familiar With windstorms on the sea of Galilee But you may be familiar with fear You may be familiar with crises and you may be familiar with doubt And so the question is where do you go with those things? What do you do with them? I'll say that deep in our hearts even though most of us I would say don't really believe what some of the evangelists say on TV that the more faith you have the more mansions You'll own and I'm not kidding some have said that But even deep within the hearts of even some conservative Christians We really do believe that the more spiritually committed we are the more personal comfort we should have So therefore when hard things come our way we get angry we get frustrated Because we really think that God owes us better When what he has given us is exactly what we needed but not only that deep in our hearts We tend to measure either gods or someone else's love by how much they cooperate with our plans The storm was not the plan for the disciples and it made them upset But the storm was the plan for Jesus and he knew that it would cause them to know him in a deeper way When they had little faith It was overwhelmed by fear But when you have little fear Because how much you know Jesus that fear will be overwhelmed by faith Now here's the question in verse 38. Do you care now? What could Jesus have said? Just think about the million things he could have said to these disciples Now I mean we know there's been two thousand years of reflection on the Christian scriptures. What could Jesus have said? Do I care? I Created you I've been watching over you every single day of your life I Give you food to eat I brought the fish into your nets when you were fishing on this sea. I give clothes to your kids I provide for you in every way imaginable and I won't even go into how many times you've almost died and didn't know it But I kept it from happening Do I care? He does care and notice that he doesn't throw them out of the boat That's good news for the disciples. It's good news for all of us, but not only does Jesus call them into the storm and Not only does he use this storm to expose how little the disciples and we really do know him But he calms the storm if you look with me in verse 39 and He awoke and Rebuke the wind and said to the sea peace be still and it was still Can you imagine someone walking out to the edge of a pier in Houston and saying to hurricane Gustav and hurricane Ike? Stop. What would you say about that? Who is that? I need to know who that man is and that is the exact response of the disciples. They are filled with the great fear They are in all of this man and just think He's called you to follow him, but once he's done that do you want to follow him?
Look what he can do. I want to follow that man I want to get to know him better and the book of Mark the term rebuke is a very important term because after this point He's rebuke sickness He's rebuke storms and he will take away our sin as well. Now he is showing his power his authority over nature What seemed a legitimate question for the disciples is now gone. Does he care? He calmed the storm So they go from fearing the storm to fearing Jesus notice notice the term great in this passage in verse 37 a great wind storm arose Verse 39 once Jesus rebuke the wind it says that there is a great calm and then it says that the disciples were filled with the great fear They went from fearing the storm to fearing a person Jesus because he shows his authority. He shows his majesty and he shows that he is worthy of our reverence and our all our fear our respect and our trust Even in the midst of a storm The disciples know they are in the presence of God They fear a great fear perhaps because they were men of the Old Testament. They knew the following passage from Psalm 107 Some went down to the sea and ships Doing business on the great waters they saw the deeds of the Lord his wondrous works and the deep For he commanded and raised the stormy wind which lifted up the waves of the sea They mounted up to heaven. They went down to the depths their courage melted away They reeled and staggered like drunken men and were at their wits end Then they cried to the Lord and their trouble he delivered them from their distress He made the storm be still and the waves of the sea were hushed Then they were glad that the waters were quiet and he brought them to their desired haven Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love his wondrous works to the children of men these disciples know they are in the presence of God And it brings them great fear and they ask the question at the end Jesus says why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith? And then they say who then is this that even the wind and the sea Obey him If you look in verse 40 Jesus corrects his disciples. He says why are you afraid of that? You need to fear me Why do you still have no faith now? This is a correction. Don't hear Jesus just saying why you have such small thing In a sense condemning them. He's not although he is correcting. It is more of an invitation To know him He's saying have more faith in me and the way that our faith grows is by knowing him better Jesus in this text is inviting all of us here this morning to know him more Not only that it's an invitation to hope When you see Jesus healing people these miracles when you see him healing people when you see him calming great storms It is a sign and a promise of the world to come He's saying you live in a world right now where there are things that threaten your very life But one day because of my death. There will be a world where none of that will exist In these miracles are a foretaste and a picture of what it will be like Jesus is inviting them to know him more deeply, to trust him more faithfully And to hope in the midst of what they are called to go through Are you asking this morning if Jesus cares? Are you asking if he cares for you or for someone in your family? The disciples ask that question, but there came a time where they would never ask it again Because here in this text they say who is this? They still don't know the fullness of who he is and they will find out that he does care for them He will go to a cross for them And in a sense in the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus asked to the Father Still the storm that's coming tomorrow and the Father says no
And Jesus has to endure that storm on the cross while he was there on the cross It says that darkness filled the land. There were storm clouds hovering over making everything dark There was no one there to calm the storm for Jesus Does he care for you? Look at Calvary He shows that he cares. He shows that he is the governor and the sustainer of all things He shows that he is the savior of those who will look to him. So when the storms come We no longer have to question if Jesus cares. Why did he still the storm for the disciples? Why did he still that storm because sometimes for some people he doesn't? He doesn't still the storm will for them He was going to use them later on Most of them John wouldn't but most of them would be martyred for their faith In the book of Acts he sees Stephen being stoned. What is he not saying? Jesus do you care? He's not saying that He is so filled with faith that he says into your hands. I commit my spirit He knows that Jesus is with them and even now Jesus is saying sometimes I will call you into a storm You're saying in the midst of that I am with you and you are with your brothers and sisters and the Lord and Those storms oftentimes expose how little we really do know him. So before the storms come Take Jesus's invitation pursue him in the word Fight for him in prayer to get to know him better so that when the time comes you don't have to question you know because of Calvary He cares I want to conclude with a story that I began with William Thomas the Greenhorn the crabber that was caught He was in the hospital. They were continuing to warm him up the next day He finds out that one of his mates actually made it alive the only two to come out the rest of the ten died And William Thomas said to his friend I Can't believe it. I never would have believed that a ship built like the St. Patrick could have gone under as quickly as it did Well his friend Bob kid said Wally it it didn't go down It didn't sink It righted itself back up And they found the St. Patrick floating the day after we abandoned the ship They're tooting it they're towing it into harbor Right now they had lost faith and this huge ship and so they just left it And Jesus is saying that no matter how bad the storms are that come your way never abandon him and The better news is because of the cross He will never Abandon you Let's pray Heavenly Father it is a humbling thing to know that you Call us to endure great storms great times of crises in these this life We thank you for a promise of a life one day where those things will no longer threaten us But we pray until then until then give us a holy passion and desire Lord Jesus to know you more To know you as the one who calms the storms to know you as the one as the Redeemer of our hearts our souls So Father be with your people reassure every one of us here who calls upon your name of your love and you care for them And for those who are not followers of you this morning if they ask the question who then is this May they leave knowing that is Jesus Christ the Savior of the world pray these things in Jesus name Oh man Now rise and stand for the benediction May the God of all grace our Lord Jesus Christ Who told the storm peace be still Reassure you this very morning by his spirit of his love and of his care for you Amen