Introduction
Wilbur Rees described a common view of religion today: “I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please. Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I do not want enough of Him to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation; I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please” (quoted by Chuck Swindoll, Improving Your Serve, 29).
It is natural to want a nice, safe, controllable god. It is natural – our sin natures cling to such an idol. Sigmund Freud said that the idea of god as a “Father figure” is a creation of primitive, ignorant men and women to deal with the difficulties and horrors of life. Life dishes out suffering, so we invent a loving “Father-god” to handle the psychological stress.
A couple of years ago, my son and I were playing in the ocean during a rather severe storm, because the waves were particularly large and fun. Somehow, in an instant, we were pulled by the undertow out into water above our heads. We screamed for help, but the few people on the shore could not hear us. I really believed we would die. However, my son called upon God and God rescued us. We were swept back to the shallow water.
In that situation, it is easy to speak of the lesson of God’s love and mercy. We rejoice, and rightly so, over God’s saving us. In a way, Freud would be right — we do have a nice and kind God, one who helps with our problems. But God is faithful, not only in rescuing us from the storm; he is faithful in bringing the storm. Freud errs not simply because he sees the God of Christianity as nice; her errs because he thinks the God of Christianity is simply nice. Freud is correct – man invents religion. Every day my heart conjures up a god who serves at my beckon call, a god who accepts me without changing me, a god who will one day whisk me into heaven without tossing me through a storm. Such are the gods of mankind’s imaginations.
But not the God of the Bible. Yes, Jesus calmed the storm. But the Jesus who commanded the wind to be quiet could have prevented it from blowing. The Jesus whose word calmed the waves could have spoken these words to his disciples, “A storm is coming tonight, men; let’s walk around rather than sail the sea.”
I like a god who calms raging storms, both those around me and in my turbulent heart. Of course I am tempted to create a religion with such a god! But what one in which God designs difficulties? What kind of religion creates a God who sails his people into the midst of death? Such is Jesus.
In a sermon on 1Peter 4, John Piper noted: “I have never heard anyone say, ‘The deepest and rarest and most satisfying joys of my life have come in times of extended ease and earthly comfort.’ Nobody says that. It isn’t true. What is true is what Samuel Rutherford said when he was put in the cellars of affliction: ‘The Great King keeps his wine there’ – not in the courtyard where the sun shines. What’s true is what Charles Spurgeon said: ‘They who dive in the sea of affliction bring up rare pearls.’ Christian Hedonists will do anything to have the King’s wine and the rare pearls – even go to the cellars of suffering and dive in the sea of affliction.”
Whether you have been Christian for years, or you are just now considering its claims, compare your ideas of god with this Jesus. Many find their lives changed when encountering the God of the Bible. To do so, notice, first…
1. We Must Believe in a God Who is Faithful (Mark 4.35-38)
It may seem backward that I call you attention to the faithfulness of God from these verses. “Wait a shake, pastor, the faithful part is when Jesus calms the storm, not when he sleeps through it!” Are you sure? Might a faithful God cause the wind to blow and invite you to ride in a boat?
Has God done that to you? Has he unmistakably placed you on a placid lake that was soon racked by a raging tempest? Please consider this with care, for many reject God on precisely this point. While we might be interested in a god who rescues, few want a God who places them into troubles! And when we find ourselves overcome by the suffering of life, do we not cry out, just as the disciples did, “God, do you care?”
What storms are you facing? Failure at work or school? Disappointment with your spouse? Depression spiraling down into self-pity and incapacitating fear? Sickness? “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” The Bible claims that God cares because he is good and faithful. His faithfulness is revealed in two ways in this passage.
1.1. God Faithfully Controls The Storms of Life
When awakened, Jesus commands the wind and waves to be still. Obviously, Jesus shows the disciples that he cares by calming the storm. But look again at verse 40: “Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?”
Note this well – the disciples’ problem is neither the waves nor the water. Their problem is a lack of faith in the God who controls the waves. They do not yet know and believe that Jesus designs and deploys storms. But watch this: if Jesus had never taken them into the storm, they would never have known that he calms the storms.
Let us not mistakenly assume that God only cares when we get what we want out of life. The Bible never presents God as a magic Genie. This God loves us so much that he brings exactly what blesses, even when we do not like it, even when it hurts and frightens us, even when it requires a dark night for your soul. He cares enough to bring peril that we might know his power.
On February 28, 1944, the Ten Boom family was betrayed for helping Jews escape Hitler. The Gestapo raided their home and arrested the father (Casper) and the two daughters. Casper (who was 84 years old) died after only a few days. The daughters, Corrie and Betsie spent 10 months in three different prisons, the last was the infamous Ravensbruck Concentration Camp located near Berlin, Germany. Corrie Ten Boom, “Often I have heard people say, ‘How good God is! We prayed that it would not rain for our church picnic, and look at the lovely weather!’ Yes, God is good when He sends good weather. But God was also good when He allowed my sister, Betsie, to starve to death before my eyes in a German concentration camp. I remember one occasion when I was very discouraged there. Everything around us was dark, and there was darkness in my heart. I remember telling Betsie that I thought God had forgotten us. ‘No, Corrie,’ said Betsie, ‘He has not forgotten us. Remember his Word: “For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him.”’”
In Mark 4, the disciples needed to experience the storm so they could meet the God of the storm! So Jesus provides. They thought they were going to die; they were terrified. And in that terror, they were brought to the end of themselves and learned to look to Jesus.
God faithfully controls life’s troubles. There is a second way in which the goodness and faithfulness of God is show…
1.2. God Faithfully Rides Through the Storms of Life
Jesus is God. Each Gospel writer is at great pains to prove that. Here we see the divinity of Jesus Christ in His absolute authority over nature.
But he is also human. So he too experienced the pain of a dying body in a fallen world. As such, Jesus could have sent the disciples out alone to weather the storm and be beaten by the waves. He was exhausted – he fell asleep in the boat. Surely he could have sent the disciples out to learn the lesson alone while he got a much needed good night’s sleep!
But God does not work that way, does he? God proves he cares by bringing the storm, but he also proves he cares by riding through those very storms with us.
1Peter 4.13 makes a profound statement about suffering. 1Peter 4.13: “But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.” Our suffering is not ours alone. Our sufferings are Christ’s sufferings because every Christian is united to Jesus.
Joseph Tson is a Romanian pastor who stood up to Ceausescu’s repressions of Christianity. He understood the presence of Christ in his suffering: “This union with Christ is the most beautiful subject in the Christian life. It means that I am not a lone fighter here: I am an extension of Jesus Christ. When I was beaten in Romania, He suffered in my body. It is not my suffering: I only had the honor to share His sufferings.” (Undated Paper: A Theology of Martyrdom).
Jack Taylor, Ministries Today, wrote, “God is good, even when He doesn’t seem good. He is so good that He is willing to look bad to do good.”
It looks bad for an omnipotent and omniscient savior to take his disciples out on this lake. But he is there with them, and he is willing to look bad to do good.
Let us not allow our troubles to lead us into the temptation of doubting the love and faithfulness of God! “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil….” Why? “For you are with me….” Here is hope sufficient for every fear which threatens peace and joy and confidence: God is with us! And not only is God with us, but he is faithful to bring the trials which cause us to know him. “He [himself] has said, “I will never leave nor forsake you’” (Hebrews 13.5). Will you believe in a God who is faithful?
2. We Must Worship a God Who is Fearful (Mark 4.39-41)
While the winds churned the water, the disciples were afraid. It only makes sense. But note well what happens when they meet the God who is greater than the storm. Observe carefully their fear as described in verse 41. My version translates it, “They were filled with great fear.” The Greek word for fear is phobos (from which we get the English word, phobia). And the Greek word for great is megas (from which we get the English, mega). They had a mega-phobia, a great fear.
Observe the transition that happens. First, the disciples realize that life is fearful, dangerous, potentially deadly. So they are afraid of what life may offer. All the while, they think little of Jesus. He is just another man, extraordinarily gifted perhaps, but otherwise a man like them. They wake Jesus because they want his help pumping water out of the boat. That is all they expect from him. A little help from a friend.
Then they meet the real Jesus. They thought life was fearful because of little storm. Jesus holds this great storm in the palm of his hand. His presence engulfs every wave as he towers over all their troubles. He is bigger even than life itself. So now they fear him and ask, “Who is this?” And the chapter ends.
Mark describes the disciples’ journeys from following a gifted man to worshipping God in the flesh. At this point in their understanding, Jesus might help bail water! But by the end of the book, they trust and obey. Each of us is on a similar journey. God asks, “Who do you really believe Jesus to be?” The answer is not given; you must decide.
3. Conclusion: Remain Fearful or Rejoice in Faithfulness
Please look at verse 40: “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” We have two choices.
The first, is to look around at this big, bad world, and fear the perils which are surely there. God does not deliver even his own son from the terrors of life or the reality of death. There is much about life to shake the courage of even the most determined women and the bravest men.
There is another option. It is to place your hope and faith in the God who is bigger than all of the storms of this world combined. A God who is almighty over all. A God who is completely faithful.
The disciples met Jesus without faith, and it was not good. Exposed to the greatness of his power without hope in the magnificence of his love, “they were filled with great fear.” Through the rest of his days, Jesus will show his disciples how great is his love, culminating in this glorious expression: “I came, not to be served, but to serve you, and to give my life a ransom for yours.”
In the brightness of such beautiful love, the disciples place their faith and hope in Jesus. And they discover two fantastic realities. First, when you love and worship God, there is no longer any fear of life, for God is sovereign over all. Second, when you love and worship God, there is no longer any fear of God, for his goodness and compassion are new every morning.
In her book, A Path Through Suffering, Elisabeth Elliot writes of how she explained to her children the death of their father: “What was I, a jungle missionary, to say to my own child of two when she learned the song “Jesus Loves Me” and wanted to know whether Jesus loved her daddy too? I gave her the truth: yes. Next question: Then why did He let the Auca Indians kill him?… Repeatedly throughout our lives we encounter the roadblock of suffering. What do we do with it?… I know of no answer to give to anyone except the answer given to all the world in the cross. It was there that the great Grain of Wheat died – not that death should be the end of the story, but that it should be the beginning of the story, as it is in all the cycles of nature. The grain dies. The harvest results.”
Elisabeth Elliot reminds us that suffering does not prove that God is not good – in fact, the greatest suffering of all (the cross) reveals the greatest good of God – his salvation of his people. She summarizes by saying that there are four things she has “learned very slowly, very imperfectly, and over many years. 1) Suffering was indispensable for the world’s salvation. 2) There was no other way but the cross. 3) The servant is not greater than his Lord. 4) If we suffer with Him we shall also reign with Him.”
Suffering cannot be avoided in a fallen world. Suffering can be redeemed – we can entrust our lives to a faithful God who does all things well, and we can rejoice that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” For those who suffer will reign with Jesus.
