- Storms reveal my WEAKNESS. (Mk 4:35-37)
- Storms reveal what I THINK about Jesus. (Mk 4:38)
- Storms reveal who Jesus REALLY is. (Mk 4:39-41)
Psalm 56:3 - When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.
Isaiah 12:2 - I will trust, and will not be afraid...
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:01-00:04
Let me ask you, what are you afraid of?
00:07-00:08
What are you afraid of?
00:09-00:11
Ben Moll, what are you afraid of?
00:13-00:14
The dark.
00:16-00:17
Anybody with Ben on that?
00:18-00:20
All right. Randy Campbell, what are you afraid of?
00:21-00:24
Snakes. All right. Anybody with Randy on the snake thing?
00:24-00:26
Okay, that's a pretty common one, right?
00:26-00:27
Mark Ward, what are you afraid of?
00:28-00:30
The unknown. Okay.
00:31-00:33
Well, pay attention because we're going to learn some stuff today.
00:34-00:38
I learned a lot about that this week that I am so glad to share with you about that.
00:40-00:42
So, what are you afraid of?
00:43-00:45
Well, the truth is everyone is afraid of something.
00:46-00:50
I looked up actually what the most common phobias were.
00:51-00:56
Show of hands, when any of these pertain to you, how many people here are afraid of heights?
00:57-00:58
Anybody afraid of heights?
00:59-01:25
I'm not really afraid of heights. I'm afraid of falling from a high place, and I'm not even Really afraid of falling from a high place. I'm afraid of the sudden stop at the end Okay enclosed spaces how many people are afraid of enclosed spaces anyone all right Okay, Ben said this is next on the list the dark how many people the dark Well, next on the list is snakes.
01:26-01:30
I don't know if these were like, this list was like from greatest to least.
01:31-01:32
Here's one, how about needles?
01:32-01:33
Anybody here afraid of needles?
01:35-01:36
Couple of you are?
01:37-01:38
All right, disease?
01:39-01:41
Are there any germaphobes here?
01:42-01:45
Okay, so Sally, you do the fist bump, right?
01:47-01:49
The elbow bump.
01:51-01:54
You're like, you know what, Why don't you just wave at me from across the room?
01:55-01:56
That's better yet.
01:57-01:58
How about a friendly text?
02:02-02:02
There you go.
02:02-02:03
You can wave.
02:05-02:07
Do you know Napoleon Bonaparte?
02:08-02:09
You know what he was afraid of?
02:11-02:12
This is absolutely true.
02:12-02:13
He was afraid of cats.
02:14-02:15
That's a whole other sermon.
02:17-02:19
Anybody here afraid of public speaking?
02:22-02:23
Yep, me too.
02:25-02:27
Well, everyone is afraid of something.
02:29-02:34
Now, some fears, some fears obviously are situational, right?
02:34-02:35
They come and they go.
02:37-02:37
You know what I mean?
02:37-02:45
Like, I am scared to death of sharks, but I'm not scared to death of sharks right now, okay?
02:46-02:57
I haven't thought about sharks, like, you know, for the last couple of weeks, because there's no danger right now of being eaten by a shark.
02:59-03:12
So some fears are situational, but others seem to take up residence in our hearts, and oftentimes those are tied into something familiar.
03:14-03:23
Mark said earlier, "Fear of the unknown." That's really not just a fear, but that's a whole category of fears, isn't it?
03:24-03:29
Unknown concerning my job, concerning my marriage, concerning something to do with my children.
03:30-03:34
But do you know, good news, do you know what the most often repeated command is in the Bible?
03:34-03:35
Do you know what it is?
03:37-03:43
The most often repeated command in the Bible is "Fear not." Did you know that?
03:44-04:11
About three hundred times in God's Word, as you read it, it is going to say, God is going to tell you, God is going to reassure you, God is going to command you, "Fear not." Now if I were to go around and take a poll this morning and say, "How many people believe that when God says, 'Fear not'?" How many people are on board with that commandment?
04:12-04:28
Most of us in here probably say, "Yeah, I'm on board with the commandment." But the truth is, even having a perfect theology doesn't mean that there aren't going to be times in our lives that we're going to be tempted to fear.
04:32-04:39
The author, Edith Wharton, didn't believe in ghosts, but was afraid of them.
04:42-04:50
And it's true, church, that you can know something in your mind, but not believe it in your heart.
04:54-05:10
It's like having a child who's afraid of the dark, and your child can't sleep, and, you he's in there and maybe whimpering a little bit, maybe crying, and parent, you go in, what's the matter?
05:11-05:12
I'm afraid of the dark.
05:13-05:14
You can turn the lights on.
05:15-06:05
You can take that child by the hand and show them under the bed and in the closet and go through every nook and cranny in the house and show them and convince them in their mind that there's nothing in the house to be afraid of, but what happens as soon as you turn the the lights back off. They're scared again. What happened? It didn't get from here to here. And Christians, we are often guilty of that ourselves. So in order to drive out fear, we need to drive out whatever it is that we're scared of, whatever it is that we're uncertain of if it falls into the category of the unknown, which honestly, fear lives in the realm of might, doesn't it?
06:06-06:08
And I don't mean might like strong, I mean might like maybe, right?
06:08-06:09
Isn't that what fear is?
06:11-06:12
Fear lives in the realm of might.
06:13-06:15
You're always afraid of what might happen.
06:18-06:20
My wife might leave me.
06:20-06:40
My children might not get better, and I might lose my job, and I might not have enough money this month." Well, to drive out fear, you need to drive out what you don't know about the future with what you do know about Jesus Christ.
06:40-06:41
And I'm going to say that again.
06:42-06:59
To drive out fear, you have to drive out what I don't know about the future with what I I do know about Jesus Christ, and this is a lesson that Jesus graphically taught His disciples.
06:59-07:01
Look at Mark 4.35.
07:02-07:16
It says, "On that day when evening had come, He said to them, 'Let us go across to the other side.' And leaving the crowd, they took Him with them in the boat, just as He was.
07:18-07:19
And other boats were with him.
07:21-07:27
And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat so that the boat was already filling.
07:29-07:32
But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion.
07:35-07:45
And they woke him and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, "Peace!
07:47-07:53
Be still!" And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.
07:56-07:59
He said to them, "Why are you so afraid?
08:00-08:18
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?" Bow your heads with me.
08:20-08:26
Father, I pray that you would give us fresh eyes as we look at a familiar story.
08:28-08:33
Oftentimes we can come to a passage like this in the Bible and say, "Yeah, yeah, I've read this before.
08:33-08:42
This calms the storm, but we miss the impact if we don't put ourselves right there in the boat with the disciples.
08:46-09:08
I pray for a day of great transformation, that your Holy Spirit would powerfully unleash Your Word in our hearts, so that we would be a people who embrace Your command to fear not.
09:09-09:11
It's in Jesus' glorious name that we pray.
09:13-09:13
Amen.
09:16-09:22
What we're going to be looking at today, if you have your outline, the great thing about storms.
09:25-09:42
One of the ways that the Lord will teach you not to fear is by putting you in a place where you have no choice but to trust Him.
09:45-09:54
In other words, the Lord will teach you not to fear by taking you through a storm.
09:56-10:02
And you're like, "Well, Pastor Jeff, I don't even have a boat." Well, when we talk about storms, here's what we're talking about.
10:03-10:09
Unexpected crises or circumstances that come into our lives that we are powerless against.
10:12-10:20
An unexpected crisis, an unexpected circumstance that comes into your life that you just have no power against.
10:21-10:24
We read this passage, you're like, "Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hang on, hang on.
10:25-10:32
The Bible says that he was sleeping, so did Jesus cause the storm?
10:33-10:37
Or if he was sleeping, did he have no control over it?
10:37-10:41
Or was it something that was already going to happen naturally and He allowed it?
10:44-10:46
Did Satan send that storm in order to kill Jesus?
10:47-10:48
Some preachers believe that.
10:50-10:56
You're like, "So which is it?" I'm going to give you a definitive answer on that.
10:58-10:59
I don't know.
11:00-11:01
You know why I don't know?
11:03-11:04
Because the Bible doesn't say.
11:05-11:13
The Bible doesn't say how it came about, but emphatically, here's what the Bible does say.
11:13-11:18
This is the bottom line, and this is the purpose for which Mark is relaying this account.
11:18-11:27
This is something that happened that Jesus used powerfully in the lives of His disciples.
11:31-11:32
So jot these three things down.
11:33-11:38
Chapter 1, "Storms reveal my weakness." This is a great thing about storms.
11:38-11:43
"Storms reveal my weakness." Let's look at verses 35 through 37 again.
11:43-11:51
It says, "On that day." You're like, "What day?" Well, all of chapter 4, Jesus is teaching.
11:52-12:02
I believe, as many other preachers believe, that the teachings that we have here in chapter 4 are sort of the overview of everything that he was teaching.
12:03-12:11
You know, if you were to just read chapter 4 as like the sum total of everything Jesus said that day, it's like a minute and a half long sermon.
12:11-12:18
I believe that Jesus taught many other things that Mark didn't record in chapter 4.
12:18-12:20
He was teaching all day.
12:24-12:34
It says, "When evening had come, He said to them, 'Let us go across to the other side.'" Why did the chicken cross the road?
12:34-12:36
Well, to get to the other side.
12:36-12:38
So why did Jesus cross the sea?
12:40-12:43
Actually there's a very specific reason, and we'll talk about that next week.
12:44-12:47
We find the reason in chapter 5, why He wanted to go to the other side.
12:48-12:57
It says, "And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was." Like, what's that all about?
12:58-13:00
Well, the crowd was so pressing Jesus.
13:01-13:08
Remember, oftentimes Jesus would actually get into a boat so that he could teach without being mobbed by people all over him.
13:09-13:18
Well, what this is saying is, okay, Jesus is like all day standing in the boat teaching, and he says, "Let's go to the other side." He stayed in the boat that he was in.
13:18-13:19
Did you get that?
13:19-13:37
Like, "Okay, Jesus, let's go." You're like, "Well, like by himself?" Well, no, it says, "And other boats were with him." So Jesus said, "I want to get to the other side." So I'm sure some disciples got in the boat with Jesus, the one that he was in, and some other boats followed along.
13:37-13:39
So kind of picture in your mind a little boat caravan.
13:42-13:54
It says, "And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling." Storms reveal my weakness.
13:55-13:56
Where are they at?
13:56-13:58
Well, they're on the Sea of Galilee.
13:59-14:00
I found this incredibly interesting.
14:00-14:09
Did you know the Sea of Galilee is about 700 feet below sea level and is surrounded by mountains?
14:10-14:18
And scientists say it is one of the most unique, or the most unique, bodies of water on the entire planet.
14:18-14:19
And here's why.
14:19-14:30
700 feet below sea level, Middle East, constantly hovering over it is hot, wet air.
14:31-14:40
But being surrounded by mountains, it's subject to all these winds, these cool winds that whip through the mountains and the valleys and come over the sea.
14:41-14:51
So what happens in the Sea of Galilee is it can be totally calm to a hurricane in a matter of minutes.
14:53-14:56
Seventy mile per hour winds out of nowhere.
14:58-15:09
Scientists say the conditions for this sea are just right, that it can cause the most sudden and violent storms, unlike anywhere else on the planet.
15:10-15:13
So what you see here with the disciples is a worst case scenario.
15:14-15:20
So they had this long day of teaching, it's night time, they're in this boat, like how big was the boat?
15:20-15:27
Well don't think Carnival Cruise Line, this was probably a boat that fit about 15 or 20 men.
15:29-15:41
Okay, so we're in this little boat, and we're going across, and there's these other boats, Jesus is sleeping, and then boom! Storm. That's sort of the way life is, isn't it?
15:42-15:58
Sudden storms. Things seem to be going okay, when suddenly you get that diagnosis. I just found out this past week a good friend of mine, very suddenly diagnosed with lymphoma.
16:01-16:06
Young man, healthy man, apparently, suddenly.
16:08-16:10
Another sudden storm is death.
16:13-16:24
Also this past week I visited a funeral home because the wife of a good friend of mine, a former elder that I served the Lord with, died of Lou Gehrig's disease.
16:27-16:29
It can be a job loss.
16:29-16:31
It can be financial collapse.
16:33-16:35
So often in life we have no warning.
16:37-16:41
And if we're honest, sometimes it just seems like when it rains it pours, right?
16:43-17:09
Very seldom is it just, "I got this diagnosis," but rather, "I got this diagnosis, and we don't know how we're going to pay for any treatment, and our car's broken down, and we can't even afford to get that fixed." Anybody know what I'm talking about?
17:10-17:12
It just all seems to hit at once.
17:13-17:24
Everything's fine and then boom, it seems like the whole world is crashing around you like one of these storms on the Sea of Galilee.
17:25-17:31
Calm one minute, complete despair the next minute.
17:33-17:48
Every single person in this room is either entering a storm right now, or you are in right now, or you are leaving a storm right now. But let's get biblical.
17:50-18:09
Following Jesus doesn't keep you from storms. This idea that if I follow Jesus he's going to make life comfortable. Jesus doesn't keep you from storms. In fact, Jesus leads you right into storms, right? Okay, so these disciples were like, We left our jobs.
18:09-18:10
We left our families.
18:10-18:12
We left everything to follow Jesus.
18:13-18:26
And Jesus goes, "Okay, we're going over there." And as soon as they get in the boat with Him, "I thought this was going to be easy." Why would Jesus do this?
18:26-18:27
Well, here's why.
18:28-18:33
Storms destroy our delusion of adequacy.
18:34-18:37
Storms destroy our delusion of adequacy.
18:38-18:39
What do I mean by that?
18:41-18:48
You know, until the day he died, my father carried a picture, he carried several pictures in his wallet, but there's this picture of me.
18:48-18:49
You know the picture I'm talking about there?
18:49-18:51
He had this picture of me in his wallet.
18:51-18:53
It was the day I was going to run away from home.
18:54-18:55
How old was I?
18:56-18:57
Nineteen.
18:57-18:57
No.
19:00-19:04
I was, I was what?
19:04-19:05
Four or five?
19:07-19:12
I was four or five years old, and I couldn't take it anymore at the Miller house, and I'm running away.
19:14-19:25
So I got on my satin baseball jacket, put on my baseball hat, and I took with me the one thing that meant the most to me in the world.
19:25-19:26
Do you know what it was?
19:27-19:29
My Spider-Man action figure.
19:34-19:35
So I'm running away from home, right?
19:36-19:43
and it didn't strike me as odd at the time, but my parents had me stop by the door so they could take my picture.
19:45-19:49
Like, you're losing a son, and you want me to pose for your picture?
19:51-19:52
You're not gonna try to talk me out of this?
19:54-19:54
They didn't.
19:56-19:58
They were just like, smile, okay, goodbye.
20:01-20:02
Do you know how far I made it?
20:04-20:12
I walked out the kitchen door into the garage, down the steps in the garage, and I made it, this is one of my earliest memories.
20:13-20:14
I made it to the garage door.
20:15-20:16
I didn't even make it outside.
20:17-20:26
I made it to the garage door, and I remember I stopped and thought, I don't have any food, and I don't have any money.
20:28-20:36
So I turned around and I went back and grace them with my presence for another 15 years or whatever.
20:40-20:42
Storms will destroy your delusion of adequacy.
20:45-21:02
I seem to have really thought things through when I was five, but the problem is we get older and we start thinking that we have the smarts, we have the resources, we have the networks, We have the creativity to handle life pretty easily.
21:06-21:08
And we have a way of somehow learning to manage.
21:10-21:16
Yeah, things look bleak now, but I'll take out a loan, or I know somebody that can call in a favor for me.
21:19-21:24
Well, the danger there, you never learn dependence upon the Lord.
21:26-21:29
So Jesus will lead you into a storm.
21:29-21:37
Jesus will lead you into a place where you have no choice but to cry out to Him.
21:41-21:55
So if you're facing a storm right now, this might be hard to hear, but this is actually good news because you are about to learn some important lessons about following Jesus Christ.
21:55-21:59
And the first lesson is this, storms reveal my weakness.
22:02-22:07
When I say storms reveal my weakness, I don't mean like my one weakness like kryptonite or whatever.
22:08-22:12
Storms reveal that I am a weak person, inherently.
22:13-22:14
I have no power.
22:15-22:18
And storms have a way of showing me that and reminding me of that.
22:20-22:25
Secondly, storms reveal what I think about Jesus.
22:28-22:30
Storms reveal what I think about Jesus.
22:31-22:43
Verse 38, ok so this storm is happening and actually this word translated windstorm is where we get the word hurricane.
22:44-23:06
Matthew tells this story, I believe in Matthew chapter 8, he uses a word where we get the the English word "earthquake." So in Matthew's description, he's like, "All of a sudden, an earthquake on the sea happened." Okay, so do you have this picture, you know, 70 mile-per-hour winds and the boat is rocking and it's filling up with water?
23:08-23:12
It's so scary that even these seasoned fishermen are freaking out.
23:14-23:15
Where was the rabbi?
23:17-23:22
Where was the one that they left everything to follow?
23:22-23:27
Where was the one whose idea it was to cross the sea?
23:28-23:43
Well, verse 38 says, "But he, but Jesus, was in the stern, asleep on the cushion." That word for cushion in the Greek has the word "head" in it, meaning a head cushion, okay?
23:44-24:42
idea like there's this like dog bed or something. What it means is Jesus had his head on the pillow, literally is what this means. And they woke him and said to him, "Teacher!" Oh, by the way, let's like tone of voice here, right? Now, the Bible doesn't like give you tone of voice, but I think we can... I think we're safe to imply some things here, right? To infer some things, rather. I think we're safe, right? Do you think it was, "Teacher, the boat's filling up. Do you care? Or was this something we shouldn't have bothered you with?" Do you think it was that? Probably not. Their tone of voice probably would have been the same tone of voice that you or I would have used in this situation, right? "Teacher, do you not care that we're perishing?
24:45-24:46
Like literally, we're dying.
24:47-24:50
Jesus, we're dying, and you don't care?
24:50-24:52
You don't care that we're dying?
24:53-24:53
Seriously?
24:55-24:55
You're sleeping?
24:56-24:57
Have you ever been that tired, by the way?
24:57-24:59
Have you ever been that tired?
25:01-25:06
The boat is in the middle of a hurricane, and Jesus is sleeping.
25:08-25:11
The boat is filling up with water and Jesus is sleeping.
25:11-25:12
Have you ever been that tired?
25:13-25:13
I have.
25:15-25:30
Back in my days of working for Walmart, there were days that I'd have the three to 11 shift and I'd be right in the middle of that shift and the manager would say, "Yeah, Jeff, we need you to like, "can you stay and like rework the stock room?" Meaning like, oh, you mean like later this week?
25:30-25:31
No, like now.
25:31-25:36
And I'd work from three in the afternoon till seven the next morning and that's, it was like 15 hours.
25:37-25:39
That wasn't like 15 hours of sitting at a desk.
25:40-25:44
That was rearranging the stock room all night after already working an eight hour shift there.
25:45-25:48
I was exhausted by the time I got home.
25:48-25:53
I remember literally punching myself in the face on the drive home because I was falling asleep.
25:54-25:56
And there were days, you remember?
25:57-26:02
I'd come home, I'd walk downstairs into our basement, cement floor.
26:04-26:13
I'd make it halfway across the basement, I would collapse, face first on the cement floor, work boots, jacket, everything still on, completely unconscious.
26:14-26:16
Until like Darren would find me like, dude, what are you doing?
26:18-26:19
Exhausted.
26:22-26:26
You're like, so like Jesus wasn't working at Walmart, right?
26:27-26:29
Is it really that exhausting to preach?
26:31-26:37
Actually, research shows, this is, I'm inviting you to my pity party, you ready?
26:38-26:42
I'm not, my job is hard, but I would say no harder than yours.
26:43-26:45
You work very hard at your job, so do I, okay?
26:46-26:48
By the way, this is free.
26:49-26:52
Just watch out for the preacher that's like, "My job is so hard." It's not.
26:53-26:56
An hour a week, one book, I mean, come on.
26:59-26:59
Boo hoo.
27:02-27:05
But, do a little digging up.
27:06-27:17
Research has shown preaching a half-hour sermon takes the physical effect on your body as it would to do eight hours of hard manual labor.
27:18-27:19
That's true.
27:19-27:22
You're like, "Dude, you're just standing there talking." I know.
27:22-27:26
I can't explain it, but I feel it every Sunday.
27:28-27:58
home. There are many Sundays if my family doesn't all come together. If I'm driving by myself, I am going through my phone looking for people to call just to stay awake. I've done that. Leaving messages like, "Hey, just wanted to say hi. Haven't seen you in 15 minutes. Missed you." I can't explain it, but when you get up and preach for a half hour, and I know I get a little longer than that sometimes I hear, but it's like eight hours of hard labor, the toll it takes on your body.
28:00-28:04
So Jesus was preaching, how long was he preaching?
28:05-28:08
Well, it doesn't give us how many minutes or hours, but it was all day.
28:11-28:16
So my little half hour, boo hoo, Jesus was preaching all day.
28:18-28:24
So when the Bible says that he was asleep in the midst of a hurricane, I believe that 100 percent.
28:25-28:26
Take this away.
28:26-28:30
I mean, I don't even need to like exercise faith to believe that, because I'm like, "Oh, I totally get that.
28:30-28:31
Yeah, yeah.
28:31-28:43
If I had to stand in a boat and preach all day to a group of people, yeah, I'd be dead to the world by the end of the day as well." So Jesus was exhausted.
28:47-28:48
Fully God, yes.
28:50-28:51
Also fully man.
28:53-28:54
So do you believe some things about Jesus?
28:55-28:59
Well the storms will show you what you really believe about Jesus.
29:00-29:04
And if we're honest, we're often right there with the disciples.
29:05-29:06
Don't you care?
29:08-29:09
Have you ever said that to God?
29:10-29:11
I have.
29:13-29:13
Don't you care?
29:15-29:16
Have you ever said that?
29:16-29:17
Have you ever thought that?
29:17-29:18
Well, I never said it out loud.
29:18-29:19
Have you ever thought that?
29:19-29:21
You know, God, I'm living from paycheck to paycheck.
29:21-29:22
Don't you care?
29:24-29:26
I just can't seem to get ahead financially.
29:26-29:27
Don't you care?
29:28-29:31
This addiction is destroying our family, God.
29:31-29:32
Don't you care?
29:33-29:41
I've been praying for my marriage for months and for years, and just when I think it's going to get better, it gets worse, God.
29:41-29:41
Don't you care?
29:44-29:51
I got this diagnosis and it's taxing my body and I'm not going to be able to afford the treatment.
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God, don't you care?
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God, I believe that you called me to be a part of planting this church, and I have these two autistic children that are so demanding of my time and energy, and don't you care?" Well, the cross of Jesus Christ has settled the issue once and for all.
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Does God care?
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Any time you are tempted to question the motives of Jesus Christ, you need in your mind's eye to see Him nailed to the cross and say, "Does He care?" The cross has settled the issue, and the promises of what lies ahead remind us that He will someday make everything right.
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But you've got to take Him at His word.
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But let's remove these silly notions that the motives of Jesus are in question.
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The truth of the matter is, these disciples didn't take Jesus at His word, because look at verse 35 again.
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Jesus said, "Let's go across to the other side." So what were the chances that they were going to make it to the other side if Jesus said they were going to the other side?
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What are the chances?
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Percentage on that?
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100?
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Yeah, I'll go with 100.
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Jesus says, "I'm going over there." Guess where he's going?
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He's going over there.
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He's God.
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He's going to make it happen.
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Now, Jesus said they were going to make it to the other side, but he never said it was going to be smooth.
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Church, Jesus never promised us an easy trip, but he does promise us a safe and glorious destination.
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You'll find out what you really believe about Jesus, what you really believe about his word when you're going through a storm.
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And finally, "Storms reveal my weakness," or "Storms reveal that I am inherently weak." "Storms reveal what I think about Jesus," but here's the most glorious thing of all, storms reveal who Jesus really is.
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Storms reveal who Jesus really is.
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Look with me again, verse 39.
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"And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Peace, be still.'" Like parents with fidgety kids in church, right?
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Jesus rebuked the hurricane the way that a parent would settle a child down in church.
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knock it off, sit still." Jesus did that to the weather. The difference between the weather and your kid though is the weather listened. Because your Bible says "the wind ceased and there was a great calm." He said to them, "Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?" Verse 41 says, "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?" I mean, they knew that Jesus was powerful, but come on.
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This was something unlike anything they could have imagined.
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This teacher calms the weather just by speaking.
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But notice it doesn't say, your Bible doesn't say, "They had no more fear after that." All they did, it's just that they had a different kind of fear.
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They went from fearing the storm to fearing this man that was in the boat with them.
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Their fear went from being self-centered to being Christ-centered.
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Do you know what that's like?
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I'll tell you what that's like.
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I'll tell you another story.
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when I was a kid, I don't do this very often, but when you leave here today, you're gonna have like a grasp of my entire childhood.
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Now, when I was in junior high, there was this girl that liked me, and there was this boy that liked this girl.
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Now, the guy that liked this girl was one year, or this guy that liked this girl was one grade level above me, but he was like five years older than me.
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I'm gonna give that a minute to sink in.
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He was a grade level above me, but he was like five years older than me.
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And when I was 13, I was a little runt.
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Not that I'm like Hercules now, I was a runt.
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Okay, so this girl liked me and this guy liked this girl and this guy told me that if I showed up at the high school dance, he was going to murder me.
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Oh yeah, funny for you.
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But you don't understand, this was the kind of guy that would follow through on a threat like that.
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It wasn't like, you know, if Derek was like, "Pastor Jeff, I'm going to murder you." I'm like, "Oh, you're so cute." No, when this guy says he's going to murder you, He's going to murder you or attempt it.
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I had this one friend that was like, yeah, you know what Jeff, he's probably gonna like stab you.
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Like, and if he stabs you, like the knife gets like between your ribs, you'll probably just bleed out.
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I'm not friends with that guy anymore.
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Okay, so he says, you show up at the high school dance, I'm going to kill you.
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So guess what I did?
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I went to the dance.
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Oh, come on, you never did anything stupid before.
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You never did anything, no, not you, no.
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You never did anything dumb before.
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I look back now, I'm like, what was I thinking?
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I should have locked myself in my bathroom at home.
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Instead, I'm just, ooh, I'm gonna go to the dance.
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Well, the moment of truth came.
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I tried to avoid him.
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But when your school has like, you know, 20 people, it's kinda hard.
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He came up and like got in my face, didn't say anything, but I knew what he was thinking.
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It's time to make good on that promise.
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And I remember, was I scared?
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I was petrified.
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And I thought this is it.
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If only I really would have run away from home when I was five.
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And I thought this, I literally thought I was going to die.
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When suddenly, this hand comes out of nowhere behind this guy, right on his shoulder, and he says, "Can I help you with something?" It was Big Brother.
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I didn't even know he was there.
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But that hand comes down on his shoulder, "Can I help you with something?" And he turned to Darren and he goes, "I was just leaving." And Darren said, "Yeah, you were just leaving." And I was like, "Yeah, you were just leaving.
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You don't want none of this." Well here's the thing, fear vanishes when you recognize there's a greater power over what you fear.
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Right?
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I walked around the rest of that night a different person, because fear vanishes when you recognize there's a greater power over what you fear.
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And that's what happened with the disciples.
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They're like, "Hurricane, shmurricane, we got God in the boat." They realized that the power of Jesus was greater than the power of the thing that they feared.
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Question, would the disciples have had the same opportunity to experience His awesomeness without the storm?
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The answer is no.
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I mean Jesus could have sat around the campfire with them seven days a week.
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Like, you know I can calm storms.
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You know the weather obeys me.
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You know I have the power in my words to do anything I command." And they could have been like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Okay, okay, we believe you, sure." But when they were in the storm and they actually saw it, "Church, do you want to know that God is a provider?
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Then you're going to have to be in a place where He has to provide for you.
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Do you want to know that God is your protector?
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Then you're going to have to be in a place where you have no other option than the Lord to protect you.
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Do you want to know that Jesus Christ is your very peace?
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You need to be in a place where nothing else will calm the storms in your own hearts, except for the Prince of Peace.
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Your experience with Jesus' power will not happen without storms.
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As I heard one preacher say, "You can't have a testimony without a test." Just as this storm let the disciples know Jesus in a way that they did not previously, your storm will do the same.
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If you will embrace Christ and embrace His purposes and trust His Word, then by faith You're going to know Jesus in a way like never before when you come out of the storm.
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I'm going to leave you with two great verses.
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One of these verses is medicine, and the other is preventative.
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If you're in a storm right now, Psalm 56.3 says, "When I am afraid, "I put my trust in you." That verse is like aspirin.
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Are you going through something right now where you feel fear?
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Something right now that you're afraid?
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God's medicine is this, "When I am afraid, I put my trust in you." Like, "Pastor Jeff, I'm not in a storm right now." Wait 15 minutes.
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You will be.
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So you make the commitment now to be ready for the next storm with Isaiah 12.2 that says, "I will trust and will not be afraid." Bow your heads with me.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Mark 4:35-41
Why do you think the disciples assumed Jesus didn’t care about their plight? Have you ever felt that you were going through a storm, and Jesus doesn’t care (Mark 4:38)?
Think of a storm that you have gone through. What did Jesus revealed to you about Himself when the “wind ceased”?
Breakout Questions:
What are you afraid of? Illness? Financial crisis? Issues with your family? What reminder from God’s Word do you need to conquer your fear?
