Great Lessons from the Life of Christ #7
Lessons Learned in the Storm (Mark 4:35-41)
Life is tough, but if you have lived very long, you already know that.
• Scott Peck, begins his book The Road Less Traveled with the words “Life if Difficult.”
• In life, you are going to experience pains, problems, struggles and heartaches.
Job said that “Man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble” (14:1). And Job knew what he was talking about. Someone has pointed out that God Himself had but one Son, and though He was without sin, He wasn’t without sorrows.
• Someone has compared life to a soap opera – You either just got out of a problem, you have a problem, or you are headed for a problem. That is a pretty accurate description of life.
• Someone else said it this way – “One of three things are true: You either have a problem, you are a problem, or you live with a problem.” That is also true.
• This is life – there is sickness and death, heartache and heartbreak, disappointments and struggles – and as long as you are breathing, that will not change.
So, the question is not, will storms come?
• The question is: What will I learn when the storm comes? What will I become having gone through the storm?
• Our text is Mark 4:35-41, and our goal is simple: What are you supposed to learn when you go through the storms of life?
We are working through the book of Mark – trying to see how Jesus did life and what He teaches us about life.
• Mark has 16 chapters and 150 scene changes. We are just hitting the highlights.
• Remember what has taken place up to this point. This is the end of a long hard day – a day just like most days in Jesus’ life.
• Multitudes are following, but most will not be touched by what Jesus is teaching.
• Those of us who teach and preach can relate to that. It is an honor to stand here, but I realize that most who need to be here are not here. And probably ½ of those who are here do not pay attention to what is taught. And of those ½ who do pay attention, ½ of those will not get what is being taught. And of those ½ who do understand, ½ of those will not agree with what was said. And of the ½ that do agree, ½ hour after they leave will not even remember what we talked about.
• When you put teaching and preaching in those perspectives, it is an humbling experience.
As soon as Jesus finishes teaching, He says to His disciples, “Guy’s, let’s get out of here.” And they take out across the lake. The lake being Galilee.
• Galilee is a large lake – about 6 miles across.
• As they go across the lake, night is beginning to fall, and a storm comes up. Jesus, being tired, goes to the stern, lays down, and goes to sleep. The disciples, fearful of the storm, go to Jesus and wake Him up. “Lord, don’t you care? Lord, we are about to die.” Jesus gets up, looks around and rebukes the storm. He then turns to his disciples and asks two very pointed questions:
…Why are you afraid?
…How is it that you have no faith?
• You need to pay close attention to those two questions, because when we face the storms of life, those are two very relevant questions: “Why are you afraid?” and “Where is your faith?”
This is the story we are going to look at and try to learn the lessons Jesus wants all of us to learn when we go through the storms of life.
• Today, when I consider what is going on in my life right now, I need this.
• My guess is some of you do to.
Lesson #1: When life seems out of control, the world is still in God’s hands.
• After the disciples wake Jesus, we are told that He rebukes the storm. That word “rebuke” means to “scold.” One translation puts it this way - “Oh, pipe down.”
It is almost like a phrase that a man would use when scolding a dog that won’t quit
barking…”be quite, pipe down, hush!”
• Vs. 39 - says that “immediately the storm stops”
Jesus speaks and just like that the storm is gone.
The disciples look at one another, scratch their heads and ask “Who is this man, that
even the winds and sea obey him?”
• Verse 36 is important – “other little boats were with them.”
Jesus is trying to get away from the crowds, but there are those who follow.
The point - more than just the disciples see this miracle. Many witnessed this miracle.
• Here is what we need to see: These people were learning a lesson we all need
to learn – that when life seems to be out of control the world is still in His hands.
Remember the song “He’s got the whole world in His hands…” He does.
That is the picture here. Sometimes life seems so out of control, but God is still in
control. The world is in His hands. We need to learn that.
When it seems that the whole world is going nuts…when the bad report comes back
from the doctor…when the tragedy strikes your family…when the pressures seem too
heavy to bear…I’ve got to remember that my life is in His hands and His hands have a
firm grip on me.
If God is not in control we have no hope. But He is and we do, and though we do not
know what the future holds, we know, we are certain, of the One who holds the future.
Lesson #2: When life seems so out of control, God is still in control.
The amount of your faith is not nearly as important as the object of your faith.
• At the end of this story, Jesus asks a question: vs. 40 – “Why are you fearful? How
is it that you have no faith?” What Jesus is asking is this “How is it that you have
no faith in Me?”
The reason I say that is this - That is always the issue - was then, is now. Luke in his
gospel asks the question this way: “Where is your faith?”
• These are men of faith. They have left all to follow Jesus.
But often their faith is in the wrong place. Just as ours is often in the wrong place.
They had faith in their circumstances. They would not have taken out that day in their
boat if they did not believe that the weather would be safe.
They had faith in the water that they had fished on all of their lives.
They could not have imagined things would turn out as they did.
…Isn’t that how most of us are? Most of us have tremendous faith in our circumstances. We just can’t imagine that things could go really that bad.
…Things can go that bad. We have a hard time grasping that bad things do
happen to good people. But it does. A lot. So be careful about putting to much
faith in your circumstances.
These fellows have a lot of faith in their resources. They may have built this boat
themselves. Their boat and sails and oars have been used on so many occasions
and they knew their resources well and they had faith in them.
…Sorta like us. Most of us have faith in our resources. The money we have in the
bank, the preparation we have made, the job we hold, the family and friends we have.
…We believe these will always be there and that they will always be enough. We think
Everything will be okay until it isn’t – and we know that is a very real possibility. The
fact is, everything I have can be gone tomorrow – just as Job. If you want to get closer
home we can talk about Larry Kirby and Marc Garner who both lost their wives and
children, and then their own lives.
.
• I suspect that they had faith in themselves.
These men are skilled fishermen who have spent their lives on these waters. They know
how to handle any situation. They could not imagine any situation that they could not
handle.
Again, sorta like us. We know bad things happen to other people, but we can’t imagine
a situation that we can’t handle. It isn’t unusual to hear us comment about how poorly
another is handling their particular situation because we could and would handle it
differently. It is just hard for us to imagine a situation coming up that we would not
handle well.
These men have faith. Their problem is their faith is in the wrong place.
It isn’t the amount of their faith. It is the object of their faith. That is their problem…and
they had to learn that lesson.
• Vs. 46 – Notice the consequence of their faith - because their faith was not in
Christ ”they were afraid”
Jesus asks “Why are you so fearful?” “What is wrong with you guys? How can you be so
afraid?”
There is an interesting implication here: The implication is - the opposite of faith is fear.
The opposite of a faith connection with Christ is fear…and the opposite of fear is faith.
The point being - If you have faith in Christ, you have nothing to fear.
• “How can you help but be afraid? This is a scary world. Jesus’ answer – “Faith is the
answer to our fears.
As the old song says - “Faith is the victory that overcomes the world”
Or as I John 4:18 says - “Perfect love casts out fear”
…I used to read that and wonder how that you come to have this perfect love that would
alleviate all my fears.
…Then I had it pointed out to me that this verse does not mean that if I love God
perfectly I would have nothing to fear. It means that if I will ever grasp the fact that
God loves me perfectly then; I have nothing to fear.
…God does love us perfectly. That is where the faith comes in. Faith says “I know God
loves me perfectly, so I don’t have to be afraid. Even when the whole world seems out
of control. Even when everything around me is going nuts. It is all in God’s hands. He
can handle it. I have nothing to fear.
Our world is in a mess. Sometimes my life is. But God is still in control, and it isn’t so much about the strength of your faith, but it is more about the One in whom you put your faith.
I have often compared our faith to my playing on the old swinging bridges at Fall Creek Falls State Park. Regardless of how you feel about those bridges, you can run, jump, swing and sway, and those bridges were not going to fall. You could be afraid and doubt them all you wanted, they still were not going to fall. The reason, they were strong. Held in place with huge cables. So, no matter how weak my faith in that bridge, it was safe. Having said that, a strong faith in a weak bridge will get you in trouble, but a weak faith in a strong bridge still gets you across safely.
That is how I see our relationship with Christ. Our faith will never be what it should be, but my safety is not so much dependent on the strength of my faith as it is the strength of the One in whom I have my faith. He can and will carry me across, I just need to keep my faith focused on Him.
There is a third lesson they needed to learn.
Lesson #3: They needed to learn that whoever is in God’s will is automatically under God’s care.
The disciples are so afraid and one of their greatest fears is that Jesus does not care.
• vs. 38 – They wake Jesus up and ask “Master, do you not care?”
• In their minds they are about to die and Jesus is sound asleep.
Let me ask a question: When did Jesus go to sleep in the boat? Did He go to sleep before or after the storm started?
• I think we assume that Jesus gets in the boat, goes to sleep, and then this storm comes up and He is unaware of it.
• The question that they ask Jesus implies that Jesus already knew what they were in
the middle of.
…If Jesus had gone to sleep and was unaware of the storm, it seems to me that they
would have asked “Lord, don’t you know what a mess we are in? There is a storm
going on Lord, we are afraid.”
…Look what they ask…”Lord, don’t you care?” That implies that He already knew.
…I believe that Jesus gets in the boat, a storm comes up, and He crawls up in a corner
of the boat and goes to sleep.
They are so afraid that Jesus isn’t concerned. Here is the question: Was Jesus concerned?
• The answer - No…He wasn’t concerned at all. Why should He be. He knew that that boat was not going down. In fact it is in no danger at all, because He is in it. All is well.
• Henry Kissinger was the Secretary of State under President Nixon. He hated to fly, and
He only flew when he had to and if all possible he flew with the President aboard Air Force I. His reasoning was simple: He believed that the best maintained and serviced plane in the world was the one that the president would be flying on. So, if he had to fly, he preferred to fly in that one with the president on board.
• These guys are in the boat with Jesus. They are going to be okay.
The truth is: If you are in God’s will, you are under God’s care.
• Regardless of what comes in life, if you are living within the will of God, the boat cannot
sink and the storm cannot last.
• That is what these disciples are having to learn. That is what we all need to learn.
• There is a world of people perishing. There is a world of people panicking. But for those
who have placed their lives within the will of God. For those who live with Jesus on
board. Rest assured, come what may in life, your boat will not sink and your storm
will not last.
Storms are going to come. Here is what you need to do:
• Be confident that come what may, God is still in control.
• Keep your faith focused on the One who can see you through.
• Rest assured, God does care and will see you through.
