Does God Care About Me?
Mark 4:35-40
God cares enough to save you! Mark 4:35a
Our Earthly Life is Temporary
Our Eternal Life is Permanent
God cares enough to grow you! Mark 4:35b-38
God cares enough to comfort you! Mark 4:39-40
Slide
The world is sure getting to be a difficult place to live.
Job losses
Medical concerns
Foreclosures
Past due bills
Creditors calling
Marriage difficulties
Relationship challenges
Heart ache
Bosses who are demanding
Parents who don’t understand
Kids who don’t obey!
Sometimes it feels as if nobody cares.
Sometimes if feels as if God doesn’t care.
Have you ever been in that place?
Have you even been in the place where life seems to have gotten so hard that it seems like nobody cares, not even God?
I imagine that most of us here have experienced that at one point or another.
If you are in that spot right now, I want to encourage you this morning.
Turn with me this morning to Mark 4:35-40 (p. 710)
Slide
This passage of Scripture has helped me greatly and I want you to be encouraged by the fact that you are not alone in your feelings either, because there were times that even the disciples have questioned God’s care.
But God did care about them.
And He cares about you too.
He cares for you where you are at right now, at this moment, even when you are questioning Him.
He is caring about you right in the middle of your circumstance, even if you are in the middle of a storm in your life.
We are going to see in this passage of Scripture that God cared for the Disciples in a number of ways and God wants to care for you to in these ways, no matter what circumstance you are facing, no matter what you are feeling.
Let’s read
Mark 4:35-40
35 That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, "Let us go over to the other side." 36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. 37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, "Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?"
39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, "Quiet! Be still!" Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
40 He said to his disciples, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?"
Pray
The Disciples had a bad situation from their perspective.
They were in a bad storm and it looked like they were going to die.
And from their perspective, Jesus was sleeping on the job.
And from their perspective, with the storm the only thing they could see, they began to question His care.
Sometimes we think God is sleeping on the job because if He cared and He were awake, we wouldn’t be in the circumstance we are in.
That is not true.
God cares for us in a number of ways. Ways we don’t always see in the midst of difficult circumstances. This morning I want us to open our eyes to how God has shown and shows His care.
In the beginning of this passage, the first thing I want you to see is that
God Cares Enough to Save You.
Slide
Mark 4:35a
35 That day when evening came, he said to his disciples,
Those in the boat with Jesus are disciples.
They are followers of Jesus.
One of the primary ways that God has shown His love and care for us is by seeking
to draw us into a saving relationship with Him
to save us from eternal damnation and
to be His disciple.
We need to remember that it is because He cares for us that
He went to the cross,
to die for the sins of mankind and
to provide eternal life for those who respond to his call to receive salvation.
John 3:16
16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
God cares about you and He uses the circumstances of your life to draw you into relationship with Him precisely because He does care.
We easily get our eyes fixed in the moment.
We need to realize what God realizes.
Our Earthly Life is Temporary.
Our Eternal Life is Permanent.
Slide
If a situation causes you earthly pain but leads to eternal gain, then it’s worth it in God’s eyes.
And even if you don’t think so now, it will be worth it in your eyes too someday.
Illustration - Kids
It is just like raising kids.
We
discipline them
set rules for them
make them work for things now
because we know it will benefit them in the long run even if they don’t understand it.
Transition
Ok, I can see how through our circumstances, God can show us our need for Him.
But why do those
who are already saved,
who are already followers of Jesus,
who already are His disciples,
suffer in this world.
If He already cared enough to save us, why doesn’t He care for us enough to end our suffering once we are saved?
Because God cares for us not only to save us, but
God Cares Enough to Grow You.
Slide
Mark 4:35b-38
"Let us go over to the other side." 36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. 37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, "Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?"
Ok, the disciples as we just said, are already in a relationship with Jesus, but Christ cares for them enough not to let them maintain their small faith.
We are going to park here for a bit.
We need to realize that God often works in the lives of those who are Christians
to help us grow,
to draw us into a deeper and closer relationship with Him.
I am going to share my own experience of how God grew Laura and I. Some of you have heard this before, but it is a good reminder to all of us of how God cares for us in the midst of our circumstances.
After Laura and I had been Christians for about a year and a half, Laura was pregnant with our second child. We were both involved in Bible study and in a growing relationship with the Lord, but , while our relationship was growing, our faith was still small.
As I look back, I can see that God wanted grow us into a deeper relationship with Him.
He is still working to do that, because that is His continual desire for each of us and should be our desire too.
Paul said in Philippians 3:10, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings”
Paul knew that sometimes it is through difficult circumstances, suffering even, that we draw into deeper relationship with Christ.
Maybe you are going through some difficult times right now, maybe you are suffering, and are not sure exactly what is going on.
It could be that God is stretching you so that you know Him and rely on Him more. God cares about you and knows that a growing relationship with Him is just what you need.
Back to Mark
He knew that about the disciples. He knew they needed to have their faith grown. To do that though, they needed to be in a circumstance where they had to rely on Him.
Look back at our text for today. Look at what Jesus said to them.
Mark 4:35
35 That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, "Let us go over to the other side."
He told them what was going to happen. We are crossing over to the other side.
Did you know that when God says something, we can rely on that?
We wonder where God is sometimes. We go through a difficult time and we don’t really see Him.
But I want to tell you something. If you have received Jesus as Savior, He has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." Hebrews 13:5
He is there.
The reason we doubt is because our faith is small.
He wants us to grow up in that faith so he uses our circumstances to help us grow and depend on Him even when we don’t see Him.
We take things into our own hands
I can imagine the disciples at this point, many of them experienced fishermen, trying to take things into their own hands and navigate the storm themselves. That is often the same thing we do when we find ourselves in a situation.
Back to testimony
It was where I found myself when our second child was born.
We were already Christians and involved in Bible study.
I had been growing and turning over areas of my life to God.
I had turned over to God my own life
I had turned over my finances to Him –
God you are Lord of my stuff.
I was dedicating more time to serving and being involved in Christian activities.
But there were still areas of my life that I sought to be in control of.
That was my family.
I know God loved me and all that, but nobody could love my family and care for them the way I could. After all, I am their father.
Now this was not some conscious decision I made not to trust God with my family. If I would have thought about it I could have probably told you that I didn’t fully trust Him with my family.
Why was that? Because my faith in God was weak.
I was afraid that if I trusted Him with my family, something bad would happen.
Applicaiton
Maybe some of you are experiencing thoughts like this right now in an area of your life.
Maybe it is in your finances.
If I trust God with my finances and start tithing, then I won’t be able to provide for my family.
Maybe it is in your marriage.
If I trust God in my marriage, then I may have to do some things that will be humbling or hard.
Maybe it is with your health.
If I trust God with my health, I might die.
Or maybe, like me, it is with your family.
If I trust God with my family, something bad might happen to one of them.
These things are a lack of trust in God and His character.
We think that he might do something harmful to us if we trust Him because our faith is weak, so we take things into our own hands.
The problem is that we don’t always know what is best. We think we do however.
We think the best for us is the thing that makes us the most comfortable.
God knows the best thing for us is the thing that makes us more Christ-like and grows our faith to be like His.
Story Continues…
This all came to a head for me with the birth of our second child.
When he was born they cleaned him up and gave him over to us. He had this constant cry going on and his breathing was a little strained. When Jason was born, he had had some fluid in his lungs and they just put him on some oxygen for a couple of hours and then he was fine.
We thought the same thing was happening this time. After a few hours though, he was still on the oxygen. We thought that by morning he would be off it and fine. About 3 am that night, I got a call at home saying that he was having so much trouble breathing, they had to put him on a respirator.
It was here that I realized that the problem was much more serious than I thought. The next day, we found out that his blood was not oxygenating as it should.
They kept having to turn up the pressure on the respirator to keep oxygen in his blood. The doctors did not know why his blood was not oxygenating either, just that it wasn’t.
Through this time, there were people all over praying for us and our baby. Our small group was there, our church was praying, even people from other churches were praying.
Things were not getting better however. In fact, they seemed to be getting worse.
Apply
Have you ever experienced a situation where you are praying and honestly striving to be obedient to God, yet instead of anything getting better, you are not gaining any peace and the circumstance seems to be only getting worse?
This is the situation that we found ourselves in.
We were in relationship with God.
We knew and believed that He could do anything.
But it did not seem to be helping.
And we were experiencing a lot of different emotions.
Have you ever been in a spot and you were feeling some different emotions but did not know how to express them to God?
We want to express faith and we know things in our head, but our heart is aching and confused.
Have you ever been there?
Well thankfully, we find that the writers of the psalms have been there too.
The Psalms can help us to see that God is not afraid of real emotions. In fact I believe it is helpful to us to express them, rather than to say we don’t have them.
I want to read you Psalm 44 (p. 402)
Slide
This Psalm expresses what the psalmist knows to be true in his head, but also expresses the confusion of why they are experiencing what they are right now, and he ends up just crying out to God for help.
Psalms 44
We have heard with our ears, O God;
our fathers have told us
what you did in their days,
in days long ago.
2 With your hand you drove out the nations
and planted our fathers;
you crushed the peoples
and made our fathers flourish.
3 It was not by their sword that they won the land,
nor did their arm bring them victory;
it was your right hand, your arm,
and the light of your face, for you loved them.
4 You are my King and my God,
who decrees victories for Jacob.
5 Through you we push back our enemies;
through your name we trample our foes.
6 I do not trust in my bow,
my sword does not bring me victory;
7 but you give us victory over our enemies,
you put our adversaries to shame.
8 In God we make our boast all day long,
and we will praise your name forever.
Selah
The Psalmist here speaks of who He knows God to be.
God has done mighty and awesome things in their life.
He has brought them in a saving relationship
He has cared for them in difficult times.
But listen to what he says next
9 But now you have rejected and humbled us;
you no longer go out with our armies.
10 You made us retreat before the enemy,
and our adversaries have plundered us.
11 You gave us up to be devoured like sheep
and have scattered us among the nations.
12 You sold your people for a pittance,
gaining nothing from their sale.
13 You have made us a reproach to our neighbors,
the scorn and derision of those around us.
14 You have made us a byword among the nations;
the peoples shake their heads at us.
15 My disgrace is before me all day long,
and my face is covered with shame
16 at the taunts of those who reproach and revile me,
because of the enemy, who is bent on revenge.
17 All this happened to us,
though we had not forgotten you
or been false to your covenant.
18 Our hearts had not turned back;
our feet had not strayed from your path.
He is facing these terrible circumstances, in spite of being in a growing and continual walk with the Lord and the psalmist expresses his emotions and confusion to the Lord.
Lord I don’t get it!
But even though Israel has not turned from God at this point, those circumstances have helped to draw His people into deeper dependence as they cry out to God.
23 Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep?
Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever.
24 Why do you hide your face
and forget our misery and oppression?
25 We are brought down to the dust;
our bodies cling to the ground.
26 Rise up and help us;
redeem us because of your unfailing love.
He expresses his emotion and cries out to the Lord both in his knowledge and in his anguish, pleading with the Lord to show Himself for Who He is.
Even in his pain and confusion, he turns to the One whom he knows cares, even if he can’t sense it right then.
This is the situation that the Disciples found themselves in.
Jesus is sleeping and they don’t think He cares.
“Teacher, don’t you care if we drown.”
This is the situation that I found myself in. My child is dying and I didn’t think He cared.
“Lord, don’t you care about me and my family?”
It is ok to express how you are feeling about some situation to the Lord.
He made us with feelings.
If you find yourself in some situation where you don’t know or understand, I want you to know that it is ok to cry out to Him, to be transparent with your lack of understanding.
God is not going to be shocked. He already knows how you are feeling and He does want to care for you and it is often through expressing that emotion, that will sometimes lead us back to realizing that God does care.
Continuing on …
Three days after the birth of our second child, Laura had to come home from the hospital and we had to leave without him. That was very hard.
We were going back everyday there.
On about day 8, we got a call from the doctor. He said that they had turned the pressure up on the respirator as high as they could.
Laura was a respiratory therapist at that time and she knew things were pretty bad. The chances of his survival looked pretty slim.
I remember getting in the shower to get ready to go to the hospital and I just started crying my eyes out and crying out to God.
Don’t you care about me God?
Don’t you care about our son?
It was in this moment of expressing my emotions to God, that I remember God impressing on my Spirit saying, “Do you trust Me?”
Of course I trusted God. I had accepted him as Savior a year and a half ago. I trusted him with my finances, with my possessions, with my time and even with my life.
I was in the boat with Him!
His reply to me was this. Other than my life, the things I had trusted Him with were of no eternal value. My money, my possessions and my time really didn’t matter in eternity. The lives of my family however, now they were valuable.
“Do you trust me with your family? Do you trust me with your son?”
In that shower, crying my eyes out, I knew in my heart that if I said I trusted Him with my family that my son was going to die. I did not want to answer.
But it was in that moment that God cared for me enough to grow me.
It was there that I realized that God was a better Father than I could ever be.
If God chose to take him, my son would have the best Father ever.
Sometimes as a father, we have to choose between easy and best, even if best is really hard.
Even in my pain, I trusted the Lord and told Him I trusted Him with my family.
In my heart, even as I said that, I knew that my son was going to die.
Now I want to tell you that this was the single most difficult experience of my life, even as I look back, I get emotional about it (even when just writing it down).
Listen to me though.
Even though it was the most difficult and painful experience I have ever had, I would not change a moment of it now, because, even though it was painful, I experienced God’s care and growth in ways that I don’t think I could have otherwise.
I would not have experienced the close and deep relationship that the Lord grew me into and continues to grow me into, without that time.
While I did not know that then, God knew it.
God cared about me enough to put me in a position where I would grow.
God cares about you enough to grow you!
Perhaps God has got you in a situation right now that He is looking to grow your faith, to trust Him more.
Is He asking you “Do you trust me?”
Do you trust me with your marriage?
Do you trust me in your job situation?
Do you trust me to provide for you?
Do you trust me to free you from bondage to a certain sin in your life that you think you can’t live without?
Do you trust me with your physical life?
Do you trust me with your family?
Perhaps God is saying to you “Come into a deeper relationship with me and trust me with whatever situation you face.”
God put the disciples in that spot in the boat.
They came to a point where they could not rely on themselves.
They had to look to Jesus.
God put me in that spot too.
And when we look to Jesus, even with emotional, heartfelt questioning and crying out, God grows us.
But He also does something else besides grow our faith.
God Cares Enough to Comfort You
Slide
Mark 4:39-40
39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, "Quiet! Be still!" Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
40 He said to his disciples, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?"
When the disciples turned to Jesus, He comforted them by calming the storm.
They were brought to a point of having nowhere to turn to and God comforted them.
While in this case, He allowed them to go into the storm and then quieted the storm, that may not always be how he brings comfort to us. He may just give us a sense of peace and calm internally as the external storm still continues.
But he brings comfort none the less.
2 Corinthians 1:3-4
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles,
God is the God of all comfort who desires to comfort us.
In my situation with our second child, when I was in that shower turning my family over to God, and I felt that certainty that he was going to die and I was crying my eyes out, I had a peace about the situation. I knew that if God chose to take him, that that would be best. It might be hard, but I had peace about trusting God with it.
Sometimes that is the comfort we receive.
Not a change in the situation, but a peace about the situation.
God brought comfort to me in both ways. I received a peace in the midst of it even though I felt certain of the outcome. But God also poured out blessing and comfort by changing the situation.
Two days after that phone call from the doctor, we went up to the hospital and when we walked in, Adam was off of the respirator. His blood just started oxygenating. The day after that, he was home.
Now I want you to know that I don’t think that Adam’s getting better had anything to do with me deserving it because of acknowledging God’s Lordship over an area of my life.
I think it has everything to do with God’s mercy and desire to bless people.
I know there are strong Christians whose children have died. It doesn’t mean that they were disobedient. God provides comfort in those situations by giving peace. A peace that is independent of our circumstance.
John 14:27
27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
God gives a peace that won’t let our hearts continue to be troubled or afraid.
That is because even in difficult circumstances, even when we don’t understand what is happening, God cares for us.
He cares about us and cares for us.
He draws us close in those moments, but that doesn’t make those moments less challenging.
Is God looking to care for you by bringing you into salvation today?
Is God looking to care for you by growing your faith?
The only way we can experience God’s comfort is to follow Him.
Respond to God
I am going to pray and if God is looking to care for you by drawing you into relationship with Him, drawing you to be His disciple, then receive Him as Savior and experience His care through salvation.
Maybe God is working to grow your faith.
Maybe you don’t understand what God is doing. As we pray, cry out to Him in truth and in your emotion and listen to what He says. It is often in those moments that God helps draw us close to Him and grows us.
That is also when you can experience God’s care by Him comforting you.
Whatever your need, pray with me now and after we sing, if there are other needs you have, we will have people up at the front ready to pray with you and call upon the Lord with you in your need.
Let’s pray and worship.
