Trust in the Storm - Mark 4

My family and I've been here many years, loved this church, and yet we've been through

challenges just like each of us as individuals have been through many challenges and are right

now, but it just felt like one, one wave after another, Steve said. Three weeks ago, I was up at a

cabin up kind of above Cascade, and I was up there for a sabbatical.

So I work with the Cru Campus Ministry. It's my day job. Work with college students, great guys

like Kaden over here and I love it.

I've been working with Cru for 20 years. And so this summer I got a sabbatical. So I was up at a

cabin to find some peace and quiet by myself. And on Wednesday, June 26, I fortunately or

unfortunately had cell service and I got a text from some of the elders saying, hey, check your

phone, we're going to have to have a meeting tonight. I was like, OK, OK. No. And so I checked

my email and it was Chad's letter of resignation. And I was stunned. I just sat and stared for a

long, long, long time. And I thought, well, at least it's a good view. It was just beautiful up here.

But I got on the Zoom meeting that night. It was a hard meeting. And the next morning I got up

and I was like, man, I think I just need to go. Just get out in God's beautiful creation. I got in my

Rav four. I thought, I'm just going to drive around these back mountain roads. I didn't feel up to

going for a run that morning because I had been fighting a bug, But I thought I want to go

explore, find a good trail to run or bike the next day. So I'm driving around. Google Maps makes

all these back roads, logging roads look great, like great roads, right?

They're not all great roads. And so eventually I'm on this road and it's just gnarly. It's like I'm just

navigating like I think I can make that. Yep. And moving trees and stuff. And eventually I'm way

back there but it's an adventure. And then I felt something weird and heard something. I stopped

and I got out and my rear tire is hissing and has gone flat and I picked up a nail somewhere out

there. And so I start, I'm like, OK, I start changing the tire and two of the lug nuts are completely

seized up. No matter what I did, I could not get them to budge. And, there's no cell service. And

that's when reality sunk in. I have no idea how this is going to turn out. No idea. Like, I don't

know how I'm going to get out of here. I don't know what's going to happen. I thought, I don't

think I'm going to die out here, but this is not good. That this is not good. And I realized I had to

consciously decide how to respond in that moment. I could. What should I do? Or I could be

angry just, you know, like another thing. Yeah. Or I could just sit in the dirt in despair and sulk,

like how my life is being ruined.

You know, I had to decide how am I going to respond right now. AndI just wonder if you've

experienced something like that. You may be experiencing stuff like that right now where you're

going through stuff in life that is probably much harder than a flat tire with no cell service in the

mountains.

Could be illness, a significant illness like Steve was talking about. It could be relational conflict

or church struggle. It could be. Maybe just a crisis of faith, your own beliefs. Could be a financial

struggle, could be some tragedy, could be lonely. All sorts of stuff we go through in life and in

situations like that, sometimes you experience fear, fear, especially if there's uncertainty.

How is this going to turn out? And it can even cause doubts. You can wonder, is God even

aware of what's going on? He even sees me and you know all the right answers. But what you

feel is you're wondering like, is he even? Here, like, does he even care? Does he actually care?

And I'm not suggesting that.

Now we're going to look at a passage that'll solve that for you. That probably won't solve your

situation. But we're going to look at a historical count of something that happened to Jesus and

his followers, where the disciples of Jesus were not only uncertain about how this was going to

turn out, but they were terrified and they wondered if Jesus even cared. In the midst of that

situation, and ironically, Jesus is the one that led them into that situation. And his response to

their fear at first is shocking, but it's really helpful for us to see how we should respond in our

own chaotic situations that can cause fear and doubt. So I'm going to pray and then we're going

to look at this passage.

Lord, you know what we're just going through. I take great comfort in that.

I don't know what each one here is going through, but you do, and so I pray that you would

use your word this morning just to meet us there. Help us to set aside things that are distracting.

Help us to focus so we can hear from you and be encouraged by your word in Jesus name,

Amen.

All right, so we're going to look at Mark Chapter 4. I forgot a Bible. I'll put it on the screen too.

But if you have a Bible Mark, chapter 4 will be at the end of the chapter in verse 35 to set the

context. If you read all of the chapter, chapter 4, Jesus has obtained a boat on the Sea of

Galilee and he had been teaching all day and there was a large crowd and he was teaching

parables, but was teaching. We don't have all of the teaching, but he's been there a long, long

time.

The sun has begun to set.. This is the Sea of Galilee. If you can think about what you feel at the

end of the day, like yesterday we came home from camping. It's 100 degrees and you get home,

you just want to take a shower and be done. But what do you have to do? You got to unpack

all the stuff, got to return something like working hard. At the end of that, I just wanted to be

unconscious. I needed to finish some prep for this. But you know that feeling, right? Like I just

want to go to sleep.

So this is the end of the day for them. And what does Jesus do? Does he say, all right, guys,

hard day, hit the sack. No, actually, what he proposes is this, Let's read it, verse 35.

He says on that day when evening had come, he said to them, let us go across to the other

side. So row across the sea at night. Awesome. You're exhausted. Like, I don't know if you've

ever tried to row across a sea like that. This is not a small pond. This is the Sea of Galilee, 12

miles by 6 miles. No matter what direction you go, this is a long, hard trip. And it's at night, right?

These guys, a lot of them are fishermen. They've been around the lake. They know what you

don't do is go across the sea at night. Why? Because if a storm was to come, which they do,

you wouldn't see it coming and you could get caught out there. And that's very, very dangerous.

Not wise. And yet this is their rabbi. It's kind of cool to be able to see what a boat would have

looked like. They found this was dated to the 1st century. This is what it probably would have

looked like about that. They're getting in. So not even like rowing a kayak, right? Like this

thing, it takes some work and Jesus says let's go. And So what a disciple does with the rabbi is

you don't question your rabbi, you do what you're told. You say yes rabbi, yes master. And you

get in and you start rowing. So we continue the passage. Verse 36,”Leaving the crowd, they

took him with them in the boat just as he was, and other boats were with him, (37) and a great

windstorm arose and the waves were breaking into the boat so that the boat was already filling.

(38) 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 are perishing?”

So sure enough, their worst nightmare hits and this is a bad storm, not a rainstorm, bad storm.

And they say we are perishing. They thought we're going to die. Like we are in the midst of

dying. Our boats are sinking, we're done for. And where's their leader? Sleeping, which like

that's on one hand, that's impressive to sleep through a storm like that. I wish I could sleep. I'm

a light sleeper, but he's asleep. So try to put yourself in their situation. It's kind of hard, but

imagine what would you be thinking? What would you be feeling at that moment? Is it any

surprise that they wonder if Jesus even cares, if he's just zonked out?

So when I was 15 I faced “the most serious storm”, quote of just a challenging situation,

uncertainty that I've ever experienced. And I had two younger sisters growing up, Carrie, two

years younger than me and Katie was 71/2 years younger than me. Pictures This is Katie. And

so when she was young she had routine vaccinations, At 18 months old it caused severe

epilepsy. And so she had non-stop uncontrollable seizures. And you know my parents were

sitting right over here. They tried everything to help her. Everything you can imagine, every kind

of doctor, drugs, brain surgery, Johns Hopkins, all sorts of stuff. And nothing would work.

Also, we're followers of Jesus, we're in church, we're praying, hundreds and hundreds of people

praying for her, knowing, believing God could heal her, he could just heal her like that. And so

we would pray.

Well on the morning of August 12th, 1996. In the morning I went upstairs to get ready and my

mom came inside and was just frantic. I'd never seen her like this before. She could hardly

speak but was pointing to the backyard. And all I got out was Katie and the pool. And so I ran

out there to see next to her little kiddie pool she always played in where Katie was laying on the

ground and my dad was doing CPR on her. And so she had been playing. It's only a couple

inches of water in this little pool and just alone for, you know, a minute and had a seizure.

And had inhaled the water and my dad found her and was doing CPR on her. And so our family

gathered together, called 911 while we're waiting for them to come, we're praying.

The paramedics came and took over doing the CPR, We're praying. And for me, as a 15 year

old, I had never experienced anything. Like this. That didn't turn out OK and so my default

thought was it's going to be OK. She's going to come back, she'll be alright.

God hears us praying. It's going to be fine and so. She wasn't being revived. They loaded her in

the ambulance and went to the hospital.

And it was just like, I was sitting there thinking like, this is like the movies. This is like what

happens in movies. We're sitting in our own private waiting room. And eventually the doctor

came and said, “She's gone”

And I was just shocked, you know, stunned. We went in, we saw her and held her. Next we

drove home, and I remembered driving home. To Twin Falls, ID. I was shocked and so stunned.

I just realized everyone else as I look around is going about their day. This is a normal day for

them. And we had just lost my sister and our, our world was being shattered. And I felt inside

like I wanted to scream to the world. Don't just stop. “I want you to stop and realize what

just happened.’ I obviously know that can't happen, but It was a critical moment, I realized

right after that for me and God because I had to wrestle with what? What were you doing? What

in the world, God?

And it's natural at times like that to wonder, what is God up to? Why is he doing this? This

is not exactly how I responded, but this would have been a natural thing. Is to say, God, where

were you? When my dad was doing CPR. Where were you when the doctors were working on

it? Why didn't you answer our prayers? Do you even care that Katie just died? Do you even care

that we've prayed for her for years? Are you asleep, oblivious to what we're going through? That

would be a natural response. And so the question is, how should we respond?

Is there any other way that we can respond? In these moments where we don't know how things

are going to turn out, we're scared. The disciples were freaked out. They were wondering about

Jesus while he was asleep, do you even care? Do you care that we're perishing?

And He aso let's look at how Jesus responded. (39) “And He awoke and rebuked the wind and

said to the sea, “Peace! Be Still! And there was a great calm.” He responds to their fear and

their question of whether he cared.

And if you look at Matthew 8 and Luke 8, it says the wind and the waves ceased, and there was

a great calm. And 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?”

So growing up, I've heard this story and I always kind of imagined it as Jesus kind of gets up,

he's groggy. Peace be still. And, and kind of slowly the wind starts slowing down and the waves

start calming down. And over several minutes the storm kind of dissipates and goes away. And

that could have been it. It could have been that way, We don't know. But I wonder if it could have

been more dramatic than that. As I thought about this, I thought about what my kids did when

they were little. I have 4 kids and the youngest three were aged 3 and under. And so I dubbed

them the Mogi, Circnado, which is like imagining a circus getting run over by a tornado.

That's my kids and I wouldn't do this, but if I wanted to, I could go stop, be quiet and they would.

Freeze, right?

And so I wonder if Jesus may have stood up in that boat and gone. Peace be still. And the wind

and waves went. And it was suddenly calm. It says there was a great calm. That doesn't sound

to me like it just slowly kind of died down and they're left rocking, you know, the aftermath of a

storm, though, there was no doubt. Jesus spoke, and the wind and the waves obeyed.

And before they woke Jesus up, they were afraid, right? What were they afraid of? The storm,

dying and drowning. Now it says they were not just afraid, it says they were filled with great fear.

Now what are they afraid of? Jesus. Who is this? That is scary power. That is not human power.

And understandably, they're wondering, who is this in the boat with us? And these guys knew

scripture their whole life. Who had they been taught, had power over the wind and the sea?

They had no doubt they memorized these verses. Here are just a couple.

Psalm 65:7 referring to God, “Who stills the roaring of the Seas and the roaring of their waves.”

Psalm 89:9, “You, God, rule the raging of the sea, when its waves rise, you still them.” So when

they see this happen at the command of Jesus, they respond with great fear and appropriately

ask who is in the boat with us? And the answer to their question: Who is? This is the key to

understanding why Jesus responded to them the way he did. Why are you so afraid? Have you

still no faith? Why don't you trust me? If Jesus was just a nice rabbi or teacher or prophet, then

those questions are ridiculous. Well, I don't know Jesus, maybe because we're about to die.

But if he's God, are those questions ridiculous? First, who created the wind and the waves?

He's in the boat. He made him and he's in the boat. So certainly he could handle it. There's no

need to fear. And more importantly, those questions make sense.

Why are you afraid? Why? Why do you lack faith? Because of his character. It's not just that

he's the all powerful creator. It's what he's like, the kind of God that he is. Their question was, do

you not care? But this is God. Of course he cares. Of course he loves them. And we now, 2024

have the advantage of viewing this after, you know, backwards, after the greatest demonstration

of His care for us.

Which was what? It's across.God loves us so much. He sent Jesus the right to be our

substitute, to take our place, to pay our death penalty for our sin that we deserve. He took it on

himself. Why? So that we could have our sin forgiven, So that we can have relationship with

Him forever. That's how much He loves us.

And they just hadn't seen that yet. They're learning who this is. Maybe you're still learning who

Jesus is. Maybe you're still exploring that. And I would encourage you to get to know him. Get to

know him. He loves you. He cares about what you're going through. You need him. They were,

they were sunk without Jesus in the boat, right? We need him. Here's my if I was to boil down

my own take away from this passage.It's the better you know God, the more you'll trust Him.

The better you know God, the more you'll trust him. After Jesus rose from the dead, if they had

been in that same situation again, he says, let's go across the sea like, oh, we've done this

before and they're in the storm again. I don't think they would have asked. Do you not care?

They would have known he he just paid with his life. He proved how much he cared. Maybe

what should we do? Like do we bail water? What do we do Jesus? That would be a good

question. But the problem before was they didn't fully realize who was in the boat with them.

They needed to learn who he was and get to know him even better. And so you might respond,

yeah, but he stopped the storm. They didn't die. What if he doesn't just fix our problems? Right?

That's a fair question. What if Jesus had not stopped the storm? What if he hadn't calmed it?

And what if he let him die? Would he have cared for them less? Would that have been

demonstrated? Yeah, he didn't really care about him. He really wasn't trustworthy. I would say

no, no, that's not the right conclusion. He still cared. Example Lazarus, right? He let Lazarus die.

He could have stopped it. He let him die.

Did he love Lazarus? And you could say, yeah, but he brought Lazarus back from the dead.

Well, what if he didn't? Would that mean he cared less about Lazarus or that he was not

trustworthy?

After Katie died, I had to face that I was praying, our family was praying, and he did not stop

and he didn't bring her back. And all of my intellectual right answers that I had growing up in

the church, reading the Bible, was being tested at that moment. And my greatest fear is that up

to a 15 year old had always been someone close to me dying. And so I I had to really wrestle

with, do I really believe this stuff?

Or should I just bail? Go, I'm done, I'm done. I am so glad for those right answers because

I believe it prepared me with truth about God's actual care for me even in the midst of crazy

hard circumstances. I knew that He loved Katie, He loved me and my family. He is truly good.

He never does wrong. He's always trustworthy and that helped me in that moment to trust Him.

It's not because I had such great faith. I think he was just gracious to a 15 year old kid at that

moment. To help me trust him. d it gave me peace in the midst of chaos. And the better I've

gotten to know God, the more I trust Him. I see Him more and more clearly for who He is, and it

just makes me trust Him more, even when I don't know how things are going to turn out.

The same was true of the disciples after the resurrection. They faced way worse storms, so to

speak, and God did not stop them. They faced intense persecution and challenges. Many paid

with their lives, but they were able to worship him. They were singing hymns in jail and had

peace and joy. How? Because now they knew more fully who was in the boat with them that

day, and now they deeply believed God was with them and cared for them despite their

circumstances, and that others desperately needed to know that about God, too. And so we're

all either in the midst of storms now or we're going to face them.

The question is, how will we respond as individuals and as a church? Will we respond with fear

and doubt and question God, or will we respond with trust that he's there even in the silence,

that He cares, He's good, He's faithful, regardless of the outcome.

If it's true that the better we know God, the more we'll trust Him. Then we need to get to know

him more, not just data about him, right, but relationally as a person, the one who created us,

the one who loves us. So how do you do that with any person? It's not rocket science.

You want to get to know someone, you talk with them. You listen to them. For us, we talk with

God, we pray. It's not just to check the box thing. We listen to him. We spend time in his Word.

And it's got to be more than just Sunday morning. To have regular time with him, getting to know

him, not to check the box, but to get to know him.

Do it together too, man. To do that solo. Good luck. We need each other. God has designed us

to need each other. And so let's do it together. Let's journey together. It's going to be rocky. We

don't know how it's going to turn out. If you're doing well in the midst of it, help those who aren't.

They need you. They need your encouragement. Find ways to love and serve them. Before I

pray, I just want to end with a few verses from Psalm 56 that have been comforting to me.

Psalm 56:3 & 4,“When I am afraid, I put my trust in you, in God, whose word I praise, In God I

trust I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me?”

(8) “You have kept count of my tossings. Put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?

(9) Then my enemies will turn back in the day. When I call. This I know that God is for me.”

Let's pray. Lord, I'm so, so grateful for your word. So grateful that we can. Read of others and

their experience with you and their struggles to trust you and struggles with fear because it's just

so real. That's what we go through and many of us right now, would you help us just to cling to

truth and and really to move toward you, to get to know you more. The more we know you, the

more we realize you absolutely are with us. You care about us deeply more than we realize.

You've put others around us for good reason, to encourage us. Help us to embrace that, to not

move away from you or from others, but to move toward you. Help us to trust you more. We

love you. Pray in Jesus name, Amen.