God is Caring
Mark 4:35-40
He Cares by Saving you
He Cares by Growing you
He Cares by Comforting you
Intro
Slide
Good morning. I hope that everyone enjoyed a great thanksgiving. We all have much to be thankful for.
This week was a blessing for us because we had all of our kids home for the first time since mid-August. I praise the Lord for the blessing of seeing all of them grow up, with the boys in college and Melanie getting ready to get her Driver’s license, and enjoying how the Lord has matured them in their faith and in their life.
There are always good things and bad things about your kids growing up. When they were younger it was easier to show them affection without them being embarrassed.
But even though it was easier to do that then, it was sometimes harder for them to understand that you cared about them during those times when they did not get what they wanted.
Maybe you didn’t let them stay overnight at a friend’s house who you knew was not a wise decision maker.
Or
Maybe you make them do their homework and go to school when it is hard and they don’t want to
or
Maybe you did not let them go somewhere that to get there may be a little dangerous, but they don’t understand this world like you do.
When you stop and strive to explain the reasons, they still don’t get it and all they can say is “You Don’t Care about me!”
Those words hurt, because the reality is that you do care about them. And it is because you care about them that you want them
making good decisions,
getting a good education and,
for them to be safe.
And you want them to understand so you try to explain, but you realize, even as you were their age once, that they will not understand until they can see a bigger picture of life and only then will they be able to understand that going through some of the difficult things now, will help them to truly live life better for the long term.
So you have to be the bad guy in their eyes, but you are willing to do that because you care about them and truly do want the very best for them.
Transition
I would venture to say that there are those of us here that have gone through this same thing as adults with God.
Maybe we have been in a situation or circumstance that is so difficult and challenging to us that we just can’t understand how we could be going through this and have God still care about us.
Perhaps we have prayed about it and nothing seems to be changing. Finally, we get to a point where we cry out,
“God don’t you care about me!”
Don’t you care about what is going on in my life right now?
Have you ever felt that way? I have. And not only have I felt that way, there are people in the Bible who have felt that way.
We see Psalm writers expressing these feelings (Psalm 44)
We see some of the prophets feeling this way (Habakkuk 1:2-4)
And we even see the disciples feeling this way.
Transitioning
Turn with me to Mark 4:35-40.
Slide
This morning we are going to continue in our series called “Who is God?” and we are going to see that even though there have been many people who have felt this way, God really is Caring. He cares about us greatly and is working things out for our good.
This morning we are going to look at some specifics of How God has cared for us, and I want to relate a personal circumstance for you to see how in the midst of difficulties, in the midst of hardship, God has cared for me and my family so that you too might be able to gain a better perspective on how God is caring for you, as well.
In our text this morning, Jesus has just finished speaking to a large crowd by the sea. And then it continues in
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 were facing a storm that they thought was going to be the end of them and to top it off, Jesus was sleeping.
The disciples are trying everything in their power to save themselves and things don’t look good and they begin to question Jesus’ care for them.
“Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” (Mark 4:38)
But He did care about them. In fact, He cares about you too, in the midst of whatever you are facing. He cares for you in the place you are in right at this moment.
In fact in this Scripture, we are going to see how God used this circumstance in the disciple’s lives to grow them in their faith, and He can do the same thing for you today.
I want us to see 3 ways that God had cared for the disciples in this event to help us understand how God cares for us in our life.
The first thing we need to recognize is that
God Cares by Saving us
Slide
Mark 4:35 - That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, "Let us go over to the other side."
They are disciples. They are followers of Jesus. When we become a disciple, a follower of Christ, Jesus gives us eternal life. He saves us from eternal damnation.
This is one of the most important and vital ways that God cares for us because all of us will face physical death, but we all have an eternity to live either with the Lord or apart from him in Hell.
But God has provided a way that none of us have to experience hell because he cared about us enough to provide salvation by sending His own Son to pay the price for our sins.
So often we put this off, thinking we have all the time in the world.
None of us have been guaranteed anything more than this moment.
Deaths of young people
Over this past couple years our community has been rocked by the deaths of several young people. Just this past week a young man from Lincoln Way Central passed away while working out. I know several of our youth were good friends with him and our hearts ache for his family and friends.
This should be a recognition that no matter how old we are, we do not know when death will come to us in this sin scarred world.
But God has shown His care for us for our eternity, not just for the temporary time of this life, by sending His Son to pay for your sins by dying on the cross and then defeating death by resurrecting from the dead!
Do you believe that? Have you received Jesus as your Savior? He is your only hope and He cares enough about you to draw you to Himself.
Maybe for some of you, the reason you are here today is to hear this message that God wants you to hear so you can become His disciple and receive eternal life.
The Bible says
“now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.” 2 Corinthians 6:2
Won’t you turn to Him and receive the way of salvation that God has made by turning to God and confessing your belief in Jesus as Lord, God in the flesh, who lived and died for your sins and rose again?
I want to take a moment and lead in a prayer of confession. If you have never received Christ, do that now as you repent of your sin and confess your belief and trust in Jesus for your salvation.
Pray.
Praise the Lord if you have received the gift of salvation that God has offered each of us here today.
Transition
Now while God is certainly concerned with our eternity, because that is our forever, He also cares for us in our living life by not being willing to leave us as babes in the faith, but Cares for us by growing us.
God cares by Growing us
Slide
Mark 4:36-40
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?"
Now the disciples were in a relationship with Christ, and Jesus cared enough to provide eternity for them, but He also cared enough not to let them live with the small faith they had. He cared for them enough to grow their faith and to see them mature so they could deal well with the challenges and storms they would face in the future.
This is where I want to spend the bulk of our time today.
I want to share with you my own experience in how God has grown Laura and I and one of the pivotal circumstances in our life that He used to do that.
Testimony begins
After Laura and I had been Christians for about a year and a half, our second child was born. At that time, 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 and it was not growing very rapidly.
As I take you along the journey that God has had us on, I want you to ask yourself some questions.
Ask yourself:
Are you in relationship with God?
Is it a growing relationship?
Is it growing slowly or quickly?
What is the next step of faith that God seems to be placing in front of you?
In my case, as I look back, I see that God wanted me to be in a deeper relationship with Him so He could better use me for His glory. He continues to want that for me. And you know what? He wants that for you too.
You may be going through some difficult times right now 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.
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 - 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?
How come it is that we don’t trust God in everything?
Because our faith is not as strong as it could be.
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 challenging situation.
Testimony
It was where Laura and I found ourselves when our second child was born. Like I said, 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 was an area that I was still 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.
This was not some conscious decision but was due to my weak faith. I was afraid that if I trusted Him with my family, something bad would happen.
Apply
Maybe some of you are experiencing thoughts like this right now in 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 enjoy life.
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.
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.
But God cares about us and always has our long term best in mind.
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.
That is not always what is best for us.
Testimony continues
This all came to a head for me when our second child was born.
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 here. 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 then that I realized that the problem was much more serious than I thought. Over the course of the next week, we found out that his blood was not oxygenating well. We were at the hospital every day in the neonatal Intensive care unit looking at him and touching him and praying for him.
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 for our child. Our small group was there, our church was praying, even people from other churches were praying.
ASK
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 is not only not getting better, it is getting worse.
This is the situation that I found myself in. Things were not improving, but getting worse.
I was in relationship with God.
I knew and believed that He could do anything.
But it did not seem to be helping.
In Psalm 44, the psalmist expresses some of these feelings as well. A sense of believing that God is able, but also a sense that God has stopped caring for his people.
Slide
Psalm 44:2-4a, 6a, 8
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…
6 I do not trust in my bow, my sword does not bring me victory;
8 In God we make our boast all day long, and we will praise your name forever.
The Psalmist here speaks of who He knows God to be. The God who has done great things, who has been with His people, who has cared for them and he reiterates his trust in Him. Then he goes on.
Psalm 44:9, 11, 17
9 But now you have rejected and humbled us; you no longer go out with our armies.
11 You gave us up to be devoured like sheep and have scattered us among the nations.
17 All this happened to us, though we had not forgotten you or been false to your covenant.
He speaks of the terrible circumstances that he and the nation find themselves in, in spite of being in a growing and continual walk with the Lord.
Then He goes on.
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?
26 Rise up and help us; redeem us because of your unfailing love.
Here, the psalmist expresses his emotion to the Lord and cries out to Him both in his knowledge and in his anguish, pleading with the Lord to show Himself for Who He is.
This is the situation that the Disciples found themselves in. “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown.”
This is the situation that I found myself in. “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, cry out to Him, plead with Him.
God is not looking for a façade of a relationship with Him. He wants honesty.
“Lord, I trust you, but I don’t understand. I feel like you have abandoned me! Where are you oh Lord?!”
This is where I found myself.
Continuing on – Phone call
Laura ended up coming home from the hospital 3 days after the birth and we were going back every day. On about the 8th morning we were home and got a call from the doctor. He said that they had turned the pressure up on the respirator as high as they could. If it needed to go higher, they would have to put him on a jet respirator.
Laura was a respiratory therapist at that time and she said that in the hospital where she worked (at least 18 years ago) that was like a last resort when they did not know what else to do and the kids would usually die anyway.
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 my child?
It is here that I heard clearly God speak to me. It was not in an audible voice. But I remember it so clearly.
He said basically, “Do you trust Me?”
Of course I trusted God. I had accepted him as Savior a year and a half before this. I trusted him with my finances, with my possessions, with my time and even with my life. I trusted God.
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 those were valuable.
“If you can’t trust me with the things that are truly important, like the lives of your family, do you really trust me?”
I was in that shower for a while. I was crying and praying. Finally, I told God that I did trust Him. I even trusted Him with my family. If He wanted to take my child to be with Him, then I am going to trust you in that.
It was at that point that I felt in my heart absolutely certain that my child was going to die. I really had no doubt in my mind.
That time of hearing God speak was profoundly impacting to my life.
I want you to hear something though. That time in my life. The time right there of trusting God with my family, was the hardest, most difficult, most painful, time in my life, but I would not change a moment of it now. Why? When I look back on my life, I can see that as the point when my spiritual growth really took off.
I would not be where I am today, in the closeness with Christ that I have today if it wasn’t for 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 had to look to him and acknowledge His place in my life. Without that time, I would be much further from God than I am today and would not be enjoying the peace and rest that comes from that relationship.
Apply
Is God speaking to you today?
Is He asking you “Do you trust me?”
Do you trust me with your marriage?
Do you trust me with your physical life?
Do you trust me with your family?
Do you trust me to free you from bondage to a certain sin in your life that you think you can’t live without?
Perhaps God is saying to you “Come into a deeper relationship with me and trust me with this issue.”
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, God doesn’t just care by growing us.
God Cares by Comforting Us
Slide
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 through the storm and grew their faith, he also changed the circumstance by calming 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 storm rages on.
But he brings comfort none the less.
2 Corinthians 1:3-4a - 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, when I was in that shower trusting the Lord with my family, I felt certain that my child was going to die and I was crying my eyes out, but I had a peace about the situation. I knew that if God chose to take him, that that would be best for him and for us. It might be hard, but I really had peace and comfort in that situation.
Sometimes that is the comfort we receive. Not a change in the circumstance, but a peace as we go through it.
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 mercy and comfort by changing the situation.
The day 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 - Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives.
God gives a peace that doesn’t depend on our circumstance, but only on a growing relationship with Him.
Conclusion
Maybe you are going through a situation right now that is stormy. Maybe it has been raging for a long time.
God may be drawing you to Him so you will receive the salvation He offers for eternity.
He may be growing you into a deeper relationship with Him.
It is ok to cry out to God in the truth of your feelings.
Tell Him how you are feeling.
But even as you do that, be ready for God to speak to your spirit if you have received Him, to lead you in steps that may be difficult, but that will be the best for you.
Maybe God is saying have faith in me in regards to your marriage. “Let me worry about your spouse. You be the husband or wife I am calling you to be.”
Maybe God is saying have faith in me in regards to your finances. “Trust me enough to give by faith, seeking first the furtherance of my kingdom and righteousness, and I will provide for all of your needs.”
Maybe God is saying have faith in me in regards to your family. “Trust me enough to care for your family for eternity, not just for this life.”
Maybe God is saying have faith in me in regards to your health. “Trust me to work out my plan in your life. I have provided an eternity for you beyond this physical life for those who have trusted me.”
Whatever it is, realize that God cares for you in the midst of whatever you are facing and has your eternal best interest in mind because He cares for you.
Worship team come up
I am going to have the worship team come back up and we are going to close in Above All.
While they do that, I am going to ask that if God is speaking to you that you come forward as an act of saying, “Lord, I am trusting you in whatever situation I am facing. Grow my faith Lord, and give me peace to know you are at work and the strength to follow your leading in faith.”
If you need someone to pray with we have several of our elders available to pray with you. If not, feel free to come and just kneel at the stage or sit and pray here in the front row.
Worship team – Above All
