All right, if you have a Bible turn with me to Mark chapter four, we've been for a good while now, involved in a study of the book of Mark, the study called The Cross-Shaped Life. And we're walking through the gospel of Mark and somewhat of a slow and thorough way. And today we find ourselves in Mark chapter four, the passage is verses 35 through 41. If you don't have a Bible there are Bibles underneath the chairs around you, pick out a Bible and turn to page 1068, 1068 and you'll find our passage today. Mark chapter four, 35 through 41, listen carefully as I read God's Word. On that day, when evening had come, he that is Jesus said to them the disciples, let us go across to the other side. And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat just as he was. And other boats were with him. And a great wind storm 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're 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 the sea obey him? The Word of the Lord. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, thank you that your love is so great that among other things you've given us your word, which is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. Holy Spirit of God, we pray that you will come and shine that light upon our path, illumine our hearts and our minds that we might see you more clearly, that we might see Jesus and having seen him, that we might love him and serve him and know him better and make him known to others. We pray this in Jesus name, amen. Pardon me, you know, I've always struggled a little bit with this story and I'll tell you why. Here is this awful storm on the sea of Galilee. It's called in verse 37, a great wind storm, but it would be better for you, especially us here in Florida, to see this wind storm as really a hurricane. You remember 2004? Some of you were here within six weeks time, three different hurricanes, Charlie, Francis, Gene, you've been through a hurricane and that is similar to what the people on the boat on the sea of Galilee in the story would have experienced. One translation calls it a furious squal, another one a howling tempest, and these things were frequent occurrences on the sea of Galilee because see what it is is a body of water that is surrounded by mountains. This is a freshwater lake that's fed by the Jordan River. It's in northern Palestine. Here's a map so you can sort of get your bearings. The sea of Galilee is 13 miles long, six or eight miles wide. It's almost 700 feet below sea level, and the Mediterranean sea is about 30 miles to the west. Okay, so that's where we are, and around the sea of Galilee are hills. The hills of Galilee on the west reach about 1,500 feet above sea level, while the eastern side is surrounded by cliffs and high mountains that go up about 3,300 feet tall, and then to the north you have the mountains of Lebanon that are snow-capped. So what you've got here is cool mountain air colliding with the hot humid air that is hovering over this low sea of Galilee and creating the recipe for a perfect storm. It happens all the time, and that's what we see recorded in Mark chapter 4, and the 12 disciples are with Jesus in this. This is a picture of something like this boat would have been like. It's just a common everyday fishing boat. It's about 26 feet long, seven and a half feet wide, or so, and at most these fishing boats could hold about 15 people. So here's the story. It's getting dark, right? I mean, verse 35 says that it's evening, and this little boat is filled with people out in the middle of the lake, and all of a sudden a storm of hurricane proportions starts pummeling this little bitty boat, stirring up the waves. It's raining, it's getting dark, like I said, and waves start breaking over the sides, low size, about four and a half feet high, over the boat, and the boat starts filling up with water. It's going to seek if something doesn't happen. Now these 12 disciples are not whims. At least four of them are fishermen. We know that for sure. Probably more of them were. They've been through storms before, but this one's different. What are they going to do? Well, back in the back of the boat is a man who claims to be God. It's Jesus. The disciples have a history with him now, you know? We've seen this in Mark 1 through 4. The disciples have heard his authoritative teaching. They've seen him healing sick people, making them well. They've seen him making paralyzed people walk for the first time in their lives. He's cured a guy of leprosy. They've seen him heal the sick, give sight of the blind hearing to the deaf and that type of thing. He healed a man with a withered hand. You remember that back in chapter 3? Demonic spirits would come out of people and bow down in front of Jesus and call him the son of God. He'd even forgiven people of their sins. So if anyone in the boat might be able to do something about this dire situation, it could be he, but they see him sleeping. Now, they don't understand everything there is to know about Jesus, but one thing they know about him is that he is no mere mortal man. But he's in the back of this boat curled up on a pillow. And anyway, what does he know about storms? What does he know about boats? For crying out loud, he's a rabbi. He's been a carpenter for most of his life, but they're desperate and he's awesome. And so they try to wake him up. In Matthew's account of this story, they cry out, save us. Lord, we are perishing. In Luke's account, he says that someone was saying, master, master, we are perishing. I suspect what was really happening is that you've got these 12 men here. They were all shouting all kinds of different things. And so we hear different versions of what the what the shouts were in Matthew, Mark, and in Luke. But here's what they were saying. Little help here.
Hey, we could use a hand right about now, you know, those type of things. And so nonchalantly, Jesus gets up. He rebukes the storm. And according to Luke, he says to these disciples, where is your faith? And according to Matthew's account, he says, why are you afraid of you of little faith? And that's why I've always struggled with this passage. Because see, to me, these guys deserve a little bit of credit. I mean, this is a bad storm. It looks like some people are going to die. Isn't it just a little bit normal to be a bit afraid when you're in the middle of a storm out on the middle of the sea of Galilee? And the disciples seem to have enough faith to know that here in the back of the boat is someone who apparently has some power and might be able to do something about the situation. Like I say, this story has never made a lot of sense to me until I read Mark's account. Because you see what we're going to find this morning is that Mark gives us some details that Matthew and Luke do not. And the details that Mark gives us will help us to see the real main point of this story, which is when Jesus is in your boat, you don't have to be afraid. But afraid of what is the question? Two things. Number one, you don't have to be afraid that circumstances will sink you and secondly, you don't have to be afraid that God doesn't love you. Now let's take those two things apart and start with the first one. When Jesus is in your boat, you don't have to be afraid that circumstances will sink you. Now what I mean when I say, if Jesus is in your boat, it's just my way of saying, when you're a follower of Jesus Christ, to have Jesus in your boat means that you have repented or turned away from your sinful self, depending upon yourself, and you've turned to Jesus and you've said, Jesus, I need you to be the Lord, the leader, the master of my life. That puts Jesus in your boat, right? So when Jesus is in your boat, you don't need to fear that the storms of life will destroy you. Your situation may be very, very difficult. I have no doubt this morning that some of you feel that you're in a hurricane, even as I speak. Like this hurricane on the sea of Galilee, your trials, whatever your difficulties might be right now, threaten you very hard and they're making you feel very, very low, but they will not destroy you. Why not? They won't destroy you because Jesus is the Lord of your storms. Just as he was the Lord on this day in the sea of Galilee, he is also the Lord of your storms. That is to say that Jesus is the creator of this world. His hand is always on the rudder of this universe. He is the one who is in control, not the storms. He is the one who is sovereign, not they, and he will get you home safely. Let's reread the story beginning in verse 37. Says in verse 37, a 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're 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. That word rebuked that I read there is an assertion of authority. When Jesus rebuked the wind and the waves, he was asserting his authority over them and over all of the natural world. Often this word rebuked means to forbid or to order. For example, earlier in Mark chapter 3, Jesus ordered the unclean spirits not to make him known, and that word ordered the same word here. It means rebuked. Sometimes Jesus rebuked demons. Sometimes Jesus rebuked sicknesses, and here in Mark 4, he is rebuking the elements of nature. He orders them to stop what they're doing. It's amazing. And notice how he did it. With words, mere words. In fact, in the Greek language, it was merely two words, Ciopa Pepimoso. Basically, Jesus said, shut up! Zip it! And as soon as Jesus merely said the words, the wind stopped instantly. And if you are in a boat, and if for some strange reason a storm just stops, what's going to happen to the water? Well, it's going to continue to rock you back and forth. Perhaps for a good long while, right? Not this time. The moment Jesus said, hush! Not only did the wind and rain stop, but the sea, it says, grew calm. Instantaneously, the sea was as smooth as a mirror. Now that is a miracle. That is something that only the creator of the universe can do. But he did it. No wonder the disciples reacted the way that they did. Did you catch that? In verse 41, it says that the disciples were filled with a great fear. That word fear is phobos. We get the word phobia from that. And actually, in the Greek, it's they feared a great fear. The word phobos is inner twice. And that was the only way Mark could express it. They feared a great fear. That's how awesome the power of Jesus Christ in front of them was. Now that's not a bad kind of fear, is it? No, that's an appropriate kind of fear. To revere God, to be in awe of God when he displays his power and his majesty like that, is an appropriate response. To bow before him as Isaiah the prophet did in Isaiah 6, when he saw God high and lifted up, it says that he said, woe is me, he fell on his face and said, woe is me, I am undone. When you see who God really is, you will revere him. That is an appropriate, it is the only response that is appropriate in that moment. In the Bible, I started thinking about the sea of Galilee. And I started thinking about, you know, throughout the Bible there are a lot of examples of oceans and rivers and seas and things like that over which God asserts his authority. Not just here, but throughout the Bible. It would make a great study for you sometime to see all of the different instances where there were bodies of water that God exerted authority over. For example, think of Jonah. We're going to come back to Jonah later this morning. But remember Jonah, he was, he was sitting against God and he was tossed overboard. And suddenly the sea grew calm because God was calming the sea, asserting his divine sovereignty. Think of course of Exodus 14, the parting of the Red Sea. Remember the Israelites were fleeing Egypt and they came to the Red Sea and God miraculously opened it up and they walked across. God was controlling the sea. Think of the creation of the world. My goodness, all the way back in Genesis 1, verse 2, it says that the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters and God sovereignly brought order out of disorder. Beauty out of chaos. Later on in Mark, there's that real familiar story of Jesus walking on the water and inviting Peter to join him. What's happening there? Jesus is making it known. He's revealing his power, his sovereignty over the sea. And I think of Revelation 21. You know, one mark of the new earth is that it says in verse 1 of 21, there will no longer be any sea. Now I don't think we're meant to take that literally. I suppose what it means is that there will no longer in the new heavens and the new earth, there will no longer be chaos. There will never be ugliness there. There will not be evil and satanic activity because God would have asserted his authority once and for all over the cosmos. The point of all these things that I'm saying is that Jesus is Lord. He has brought in the kingdom. He has kingly authority over the chaos of this world. The Lord who created all things is also the one who controls all things for our good and for his glory. The Lord who spoke the mountains into being. The Lord who creates the air currents. The Lord who oversees the wind and the snow and the sleet and the hail that we're hearing about in other parts of the country. Do you know that Florida was the only state that didn't get snow? Is that a good thing? I guess it is. I miss it but God is showing us that he's the one who controls the weather. Just as he controlled it back in the days of Mark 4. He is the one who says to all of the natural elements be quiet and they obey. Some of you this morning that I'm speaking to have been in rough seas lately. I know about some of your stories. A member of our church lost her father this past Monday, very unexpectedly. Many of you know her. He was out jogging and he had a massive coronary. Talk about a storm. A woman in our church talking to me having a terrible awful time with her ex-husband. I know a guy in our church who is facing a very, very uncertain future. There are people in our church who have lost their health insurance. A few are going through divorce. At least two people I know have recently lost their jobs. Somebody turned in a prayer quest last week and you know what it said. I am in constant battle day by day. See there are a lot of hurricane proportions star storms right here. Right among us. Maybe it's you. If not now, maybe this week. Maybe next year it'll be an awful storm. These are hurricane force winds. They threaten to ruin us but they cannot and they will not because Jesus is mightier than they says in Psalm 93 verse 4 mightier than the thunders of many waters mightier than the waves of the sea. The Lord on high is mighty and notice not only how mighty Jesus is here in Mark 4 but how calm how calm he is the storm may be raging on the sea but our Savior is resting on a pillow. He's at peace. He's at peace through this whole thing. He is trusting in his Father for you. He's pleading the promises for you. He's staring down the enemy for you. And here he's so confident of victory that he's sleeping. And see this is why I appreciate Mark's version of the story so much because not only does he say some other things that we're going to get to but he adds one little word in verse 40. I wonder if you noticed it. One little two letter word in verse 40 that Matthew and Luke do not. It's the little word so. Why are you so afraid? Mark says that Jesus said. Now that little word so is in there for a reason. Jesus knows you're going to be afraid. He knows you're going to be anxious sometimes. That's simply part of being human but what he doesn't want you to be is so afraid. So afraid that you're paralyzed. So afraid that you're hopeless. So afraid that you stop moving forward. That you stop loving people. That you stop trusting Jesus. In short, you know what I'm getting out of this is that because Jesus Christ is Lord, you don't have to be because Jesus Christ is in control. You don't have to be because he's sovereign. You don't have to be sovereign. You can be weak. You can be helpless. It's okay because you can trust the one who the wind and the sea obey. So that's the first thing we see in Mark 4. Jesus is Lord of our storms. When he's in your boat, you don't have to be afraid that circumstances are going to sink you. Let's look at the second thing that we learn from Mark. When Jesus is in your boat, you don't have to be afraid that God doesn't love you. You don't have to be afraid that God doesn't love you because not only is Jesus Lord of the storms, he's the lover of your soul. And that's revealed to us in this text this morning. He's the lover of your soul. Notice again what Mark tells us that Matthew and Luke do not. Look at verse 38. Here is something that one of the disciples, and I'm going to guess it's Peter. You know, Peter always gets blamed for all the stupid things. But I'm going to guess that it's Peter out of all of the chaos and the shouts and the craziness on this boat. Someone says in verse 38, teacher, don't you care that we are perishing. Matthew and Luke, they don't report that. Mark does. And because Mark does, it gives us a whole new perspective on what's going on in this story. Because you see the real problem with the disciples was not that they were afraid of the storm. I've said that before. That's normal. The problem was they doubted Jesus's love. That was the problem. Their lack of faith is seen not so much in their anxiety about the storm, but in their belief that Jesus didn't care about them. I was reading a little essay by Jerry Bridges recently, you know the name Jerry Bridges in that essay. He was saying that there are two times when Christians tend to doubt the love of God. Two times. One is when they see their sin and the other is when they're suffering. People who are suffering trial are tempted to doubt the love of God. And that's what we see here in this passage. The storm is raging. The boat is sinking. And what did the disciples say? Lord, don't you care? Don't you care? And I sense that it's said in an accusatory way. Teacher, don't you care? You're sleeping? Really? Don't you care about what we're going through? See what the disciples do is they begin to entertain hard thoughts of God. John Owen, a theologian, British, back in 1600s, John Owen wrote a book called Communion with God. In that book, he said that Satan claps his hands whenever he is able to plant in our minds hard thoughts of God. And he's been doing it from the very beginning, right? Way back in Genesis 3, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Satan, the very first words out of Satan's mouth to Eve were, did God really say that you can't eat of any tree in the garden? See, that was not true. That was a lie. It was a hard or an unloving or harsh view of God. God, he said to you, you can't eat of any tree? No, God had just said, don't eat of one tree. So sometimes Satan succeeds in planting these hard thoughts toward God. Don't you care, Jesus? And Jesus answers in verse 40, why are you so afraid? Don't doubt my love. I hear Jesus saying, haven't you been paying attention? Haven't you seen what I've been doing for you all this time? Haven't you seen what I've done for others all this time? Don't you know yet that I love you? Have you still know faith? See the faith that Christ is calling His disciples and us to exercise is not faith in faith. Jesus didn't want the disciples to put their faith in the boat. He didn't want them to put their faith in the idea that the storm was going to stop. No, it's faith in the love and care of Jesus that He's after. It's faith in His grace, faith in the gospel promises. Jesus is not upset that the disciples are afraid of the storm. Anyone would be. He's upset that they're afraid that He does not love them.
Again, to think of John O, and one of the things he said that's on the screen, he said that the greatest sorrow and burden that you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to him is to not believe that he loves you.
You know, you will love others to the degree that you understand how much God loves you. Here at UPC, we take seriously our mission to make disciples, but that mission will not succeed if we ourselves do not know how much the Father has loved us. That's why we must preach the gospel to ourselves all the time. We must remind ourselves that we've been bought with the blood of Jesus that He has died and risen again for us. That He's adopted us into His family, justified us, made us righteous in Christ, is sanctifying us. One day we'll bring us home. We must rehearse those gospel facts all the time that we receive the love of God that we might then give it away. I might be talking this morning to people. I'm sure I am, who are struggling to believe that God loves you. You're in the midst of a severe trial, and you do not see evidence of the love of God. You're like some of those people that I mentioned earlier. Maybe you've lost a loved one. Maybe you've maybe you've been suffering. Maybe you've lost your job or you've got a disease or an addiction, you can't get past or your marriage is falling apart or something like that. You're just like these disciples in the boat and you're tempted. I know you are because I am too. You're tempted to say to Jesus, teach your don't you care that I'm perishing. It feels that you've abandoned me, Father. It feels that you must be oblivious or insensitive to what I'm going through right now. It seems like Jesus is in the back of the boat. A sleep on a pillow. And you're saying to me right now, Mike, show me. I'm from Missouri. Show me. And I'll believe that you are right. Okay. I'll show you. You remember earlier I said that we would come back to the Jonah comparison. There are remarkable similarities between Jonah chapter one and Mark chapter four. I've created this chart for you look at. I'm not going to take time to walk through it line by line. But notice the things. These are striking similarities between the experience of Jonah, the prophet and the experience of these disciples in Mark chapter four. Both Jonah and Jesus were on a rescue mission. Like in Jonah one, there was a great storm. So there was in Mark four. In Jonah one, the sailors were afraid in Mark four. The disciples were afraid. In Jonah one, Jonah was asleep in Mark four. Jesus is asleep. And so on and so forth. These similarities are no coincidence. Jesus is doing something here in the boat. He is showing the disciples. And he's showing you and me something about him. He's demonstrating his reality. Like Jonah, he was on a rescue mission. Like Jonah, he slept in the boat while others were suffering. Like Jonah, he was the only one who could calm the storm. Like Jonah, something happened to Jesus in order for the calm, for the storm to calm. But unlike Jonah, unlike Jonah, Jesus was sinless. Unlike Jonah, Jesus was obedient to the father's calling. He succeeded where Jonah failed. And most importantly, unlike Jonah who was thrown into the sea, Jesus was nailed to a cross. He was betrayed, arrested, tried, condemned, and killed in your place to take care of your debt of sin. That you might be delivered from death, delivered from fear, shame, and guilt. Jesus, you see, calmed the worst of storms, the worst possible storm, namely the wrath of God toward human sin. Jesus by his blood, his death, his resurrection has calmed the father's wrath toward us who were then his enemies. And he has made us friends so that now when you walk through your times of trial, you can know that Jesus is with you and he will bring you home. He won't let you go.
Here's an illustration. Suppose that you have a teenage daughter, some of you do, and on her 18th birthday, you say to your daughter, honey, your mom and I have been talking, and we've decided to cover the entirety of your college career expenses. We will pay your tuition, we'll buy all your books, we'll buy all of your meals, we'll cover every single one of your fees. We'll even buy you a new car that you can get back and forth to school to. Don't get your hopes up by the way, any teenage girls. Now let's suppose not only that, but let's suppose you and your father go to target to buy the stuff you need to go off to college. And you're standing in the checkout lane and in the shopping cart is everything a college student could possibly desire. There's a he bought you a computer, he brought you a desk, a chair, a microwave oven, a little refrigerator, towels, linens, storage bins, clothes. I mean, everything is in there. A TV even, he doesn't care what you do with all your spare time. Everything you need is in that storage bin, he's paying all your fees, paying all your expenses, getting you everything you possibly could want, even a car. And as you stand there in the checkout lane, you see a package, a stick of gum, a package of gum that you want, you get the gum off the counter and throw it in the shopping cart. Will your father say, what that to? Forget it. I'm not buying that stick of gum for you. Of course not. If he paid your debt in full, how likely is it that he will also take care of all of the little things that come your way? Of course he will. Jesus Christ paid your debt in full every single bit of it. You'll never, ever, ever have to pay even an ounce of your sins debt. God who delivered his son over to you, how will he not also, along with him, graciously give you all things? So what Paul says in Romans 8, verse 32, and he goes on to say that nothing in all creation will be able to separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, your Lord. I'm not sure who said it, but it's true. Don't doubt in the dark what God has shown you in the light. You've heard that. Jesus is not only the Lord of your storms. He is the lover of your souls. Why are you so afraid?
George Herbert wrote a poem that goes like this. When winds and waves assault my keel, he doth preserve it. He doth steer even when the boat seems most to real. Storms are the triumph of his art, though he may close his eyes, yet not his heart. Trust the Father's love. Let's pray.
One of the questions I would ask as we bow our heads this morning is Jesus in fact in your boat. That's kind of critical that you answer that question, yes. Better question be, are you in his boat? Have you turned from your sins and trusted in Christ? Is he your Lord, your leader, your master? If not, today he's demanding that you turn from sin and self and run to the cross and embrace him by faith. But if he is your pilot, right now put your hands in his and trust him for whatever storms you're going through. Believe that he loves you. Believe that he showed you that love in the most amazing way possible. And trust that if he did that, he will see you through this storm. He will get you home to the other side. Jesus, what a guide and keeper, while the tempest still is high, storms about us, night or takes us, you are pilot here, our cry. Hallelujah, what a savior. Hallelujah, what a friend, saving, helping, keeping loving, you are with us to the end. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.