Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] You're listening to a live recording from Westside Church in Bend, Oregon. Thanks for joining us.
[00:00:06] Good morning, everybody. We're walking through the Book of Mark. Book of Mark. We're going to be in Mark, chapter four today. If you have a Bible, you can go there. If not, that's okay. We're going to have it up on the screen in today's story. As you'll see, we're going to look at the time in the account where Jesus calms a storm miraculously.
[00:00:27] And I don't know about you, but life is filled with storms.
[00:00:34] And if you are in a season of life where it feels pretty smooth sailing, that is a pure grace. We know that those times don't last forever. And we will all experience the ups and downs of life moments when the storms come and the storms go. And so today we're going to look to this story to find inspiration about when storms of life come. I wanted to show you this famous painting from rembrandt from the 1600s. It's called Christ on the Sea of Galilee. Very famous painting. The original stands about 5ft tall. So it's a very large, beautiful painting. Unfortunately, its whereabouts are unknown. From about the 1960s until 1990, it was housed in this museum in Boston. And in 1990, two men dressed as police officers broke into the museum under the COVID of night and they cut this Rembrandt from its frame, rolled it up, and it's gone.
[00:01:36] So it's one of the most infamous and unsolved American art heists in our history. And so, you know, check your attics, you know, eagle eyes on Antiques Roadshow. You never know. Might show up, might show up. But yeah. So this is missing today. And it captures this moment in Mark, chapter four, when you see Jesus here in the is that the stern of the ship?
[00:02:02] He is being awoken by his disciples who are telling him, jesus, this storm's real bad. So let's read this from the Gospel Mark, chapter 4. Starting in verse 35, it said, as evening came, Jesus said to his disciples, let's cross to the other side of the lake. First observation here. Jesus is not afraid of the dark of night. When there's a mission to accomplish, he sends his disciples out with him even as the sun is setting. So they took Jesus in the boat and they started out leaving the crowds behind, although other boats followed. But soon a fierce storm came up. High waves were breaking into the boat and it began to fill with water. There are storms that scare us and there are storms that sink the boat. They're both right.
[00:02:50] Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion.
[00:02:55] I love the detail there. Did Jesus bring this cushion? Is this something he travels with?
[00:03:03] I'm just imagining Jesus like linen garment, the blue sash and his cushion always, no matter where he goes.
[00:03:13] He's a simple carpenter, son, but he likes his comfort. Alright, I lost my place.
[00:03:20] The disciples woke him up, shouting, teacher, don't you care that we're going to drown?
[00:03:27] Just take a moment and just maybe focus on that phrase. Teacher, don't you care? Don't you care? When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and he said to the waves, silence, be still.
[00:03:41] Suddenly the wind stopped and there was a great calm. And then he asked them, why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith? And the disciples were absolutely terrified. Who is this man? They asked each other. Even the winds and the waves obey him.
[00:04:00] Let me pray. Lord, thank you for this story. Thank you for the hope that is the anchor for our souls.
[00:04:08] I pray that in times of fear and wondering that we might experience the closeness of Jesus alongside us in the storm. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen.
[00:04:25] A couple years back we were visiting my brother, he lives in Boise, and we went out to dinner. They lived at the time just maybe a mile and a half away from downtown. And so we went to downtown for dinner, went to a restaurant, and it was a lovely summer evening. But by the time we had come out of the restaurant, the sun had set, it was almost dark and a windstorm had kicked up. And the windstorm was bad enough that by the time we pulled out of downtown and started heading towards the neighborhood, we saw limbs and whole trees that were being blown over and landing in the streets.
[00:05:02] And so what should have been just a pleasant, nice, you know, five minute drive home ended up looking like us, kind of finding a way through a maze to get back to the house. And when we got back to the house, what we saw was at their house they had this beautiful, I don't know if it was an oak or an elm, I don't know what kind of tree it was, but this giant figure, 30 foot tree that overhung the house. And normally in the summer this is a mid century little house. That shade was really nice in the heat of the summer. But as we get home and it's dark and the wind is blowing and branches are falling, we're like, that tree's gonna kill us, right?
[00:05:41] And what happened in that storm is it took what was familiar, safe and pleasant. And it flipped it into a threat.
[00:05:52] And have you experienced this in your life? Where the thing that made you feel most comfortable or most at home or most safe, the thing you're most familiar with, at some point, something happens, something changes, something shifts. And that thing that was such a comfort to you actually becomes a threat.
[00:06:12] For these disciples, you remember, many of them are called off the water to follow Jesus. They're fishermen. They're sons of fishermen. They know the water. They know that in this water, that's where they get their livelihood. That's where they get their sense of purpose. That's where they fill their days.
[00:06:31] And now, in a moment, as the winds shift, that thing that is familiar and a source of provision for them becomes the thing that is threatening their lives.
[00:06:42] If today you went to the Sea of Galilee, it's still there, The Sea of Galilee on the west shore of the Sea of Galilee. To this day. There are signs that warn drivers not to park too close to the edge of the shore because of the geography of that place. The winds and the storms can kick up so furiously and so fast, or if I could say it, so fast and furious.
[00:07:08] You're welcome, family.
[00:07:12] They kick up. Thank you. Somebody got it. They kick up so fast that cars can get swamped and pulled into the water. The Sea of galilee sits about 700ft below sea level. And then the location of the towns where Jesus is taking his disciples, called the Decapolis, or what is now known as the Golan Heights, it's 2,500ft of elevation climb from the floor of where the lake is to where these towns are. So because of that drastic elevation change, the winds and the waves kick up fast, unpredictably and fiercely.
[00:07:48] And so it's this setting that these disciples set out with him, and immediately, it seems, he falls asleep.
[00:07:57] It is, I think, the central question of our faith. If God cares, when they wake him up, they are saying what is true for them and I think is true for anyone who has seriously considered their faith, that when storms come and when life shifts and when the familiar becomes a threat, the normal response of a person who takes their faith seriously is Jesus, do you actually care?
[00:08:26] This is a huge conundrum for faith. Why would God, a God who evidently, according to the story, is all powerful and can do whatever he wants and is sovereign over everything and has authority over every situation and circumstances. If that is so, then why wouldn't he show his care by fixing this?
[00:08:53] And this is probably the cliche of this story, and it's always tempting to preach this story this way, that if you're in a storm, it's going to be okay and Jesus will make it all better.
[00:09:04] Here's the thing in the text we just read, I don't find that Jesus at the end of the winds and the waves dying down say, come on, guys, group hug. It's going to be all right.
[00:09:16] The end of the story is Jesus turns to them and says a rebuke.
[00:09:21] He says, guys, where's your faith?
[00:09:24] And their response is not one of like, ha ha, that was crazy, Jesus. Love you, man. No, they're terrified because they underestimated the kind of authority that Jesus had. And here is what I think leaning into today is not just looking to Jesus for moments of comfort which he gives.
[00:09:48] It's not just for a good outcome, which in this story he did.
[00:09:52] But it's to understand that in the center of the worst day, when the storm is at its worst, when the circumstance is at its bleakest, when you don't know if you're gonna make it to the other side of what you face, that is when Jesus would say, remember what you believe about me.
[00:10:13] And Jesus in his own behavior is modeling for us something that is absurd and audacious that you would sleep through that kind of storm.
[00:10:24] What an absurd response to a life threatening boat swamping storm to sleep all the way through. But I read this quote and I thought it was so good where someone said this was not a sign of weakness, but this is sovereignty at rest.
[00:10:40] That this is Jesus so confident in the care of the Father and so confident in the sovereignty of God that the winds and the waves do not shake his confidence in who has got him.
[00:10:54] He models this for his disciples.
[00:10:59] And today we face storms.
[00:11:03] You might be anxious today because of something that's happening right at home or in our community or nationally or globally.
[00:11:13] I think oftentimes our go to these days. I'm not going to say this is my go to because, you know, I don't sleep with a phone near me. No, that's bad sleep hygiene. You keep it in the other room. Everybody with me? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. Well, I'm going to get an alarm clock and then I'll do that. But for now, I use it as my alarm clock. And you do too. You do too.
[00:11:38] No shame.
[00:11:41] But I know that it is so tempting to be constantly as kind of a default to stay informed in ways that keep us consumed with anxiety and panic.
[00:11:55] And oftentimes we have no guardrails or boundaries on this. And I think the worst thing for Christians to do is to be uninformed, ignorant, and hide from the realities of the world. I don't think that's good.
[00:12:09] But what I also don't think is good is people that are so immersed in the troubles of the world that it shakes their confidence in the sovereignty of God.
[00:12:18] And so we have this, I think, instruction in the life of Jesus to both be informed and in tune and in touch with the troubles of the world, but grounded and rooted in our confidence in who controls the winds and the waves. It is both. It is informed and transformed in our lens of how we see the world. And this pushes against the panic that wants to come in. When we're afraid of what tomorrow might bring, or we're fixated on a situation at work, or we can't shake the feeling of something that's on the horizon, that that is bigger or badder than we can handle, we invite a new way of seeing the sovereignty of God. I remember we were newly married and with a friend in Hawaii, and we did the sunset cruise, you know, but we were broke. So we did it at daybreak.
[00:13:24] It's much cheaper, turns out, and it was on the other side of the island, so we had to get up at like 4:30 to be ready to go by 6. It was terrible. Get on the boat and started out fine, the water's calm, but then a storm kicked up and it was bad enough that it's the kind where you're hitting these waves and this is supposed to be pleasant, right?
[00:13:53] You're going and the front of the boat is under the waves every time, you know, it does this kind of thing and children are crying and people are doing other things from the movement that are unpleasant.
[00:14:09] And we're like, we paid for this, you know, we signed up for this.
[00:14:15] But I remember this when it got the worst and the waves were really bad, what I did for confidence was, was I looked at the guys who worked on the boat and if you looked at the guys who worked on the boat, they're not worried at all, right?
[00:14:32] They're sliding around with the waves and they're high fiving and doing whatever deckhands do.
[00:14:38] It's a generous term for these guys.
[00:14:43] But seeing their confidence gave me a sense of confidence. And I think Jesus, what he is doing when he is seemingly unconcerned, it's not that he doesn't care, it's that he's very confident.
[00:14:57] He's very confident that the voice of God that sent them out onto that lake to minister to the towns on the other side that that God got them, had them, was holding them.
[00:15:11] It reminds me of this scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, as most things do. There's this scene where Indy is on this cargo plane and it's filled with chickens, and they're flying over this mountain range. You might remember this, I think it was in 1989, it was released. And the bad guys are actually flying the plane. So they put on parachutes and they jump out of the plane. And now no one's flying the plane, and Indy is sleeping in the back of the plane. I think we have a picture of this. This is a great moment, right?
[00:15:48] And Kate Capshaw is the actress there. I love the expression on her face. You can just read the vibe right now with Indy asleep. I think that's a cushion he's on as well. But she's shaking him by the collar saying, wake up, Indy. There's no one flying the plane. This is how I feel like life goes a lot of times, right where we started out in kind of a scusty situation, and then we get to a point where we feel like no one's in charge, no one's flying the plane, no one's gonna save this boat. And so we enter into this anxiety that turns into panic, because if we don't do something, what's gonna happen?
[00:16:32] And Jesus is calm, and Jesus has this peace, and Jesus has this absurd confidence, power, and his intention.
[00:16:42] For the Jewish people, the sea was a representation of chaos. Culturally, they had neighbors up in the north, the Phoenicians, and they were like seafarers. They would go all around and make these big seafaring ships. And the Jewish people, in Jesus day, they were fishermen, but they weren't seafarers.
[00:17:04] And so for them, the sea, even in literature, would represent chaos and disorder. In fact, if you go all the way back to the book of Genesis, in Genesis, chapter one, the very first scene we're given in the creation account is the spirit of God hovering over chaotic waters.
[00:17:23] So for them, culturally, this idea of the wildness and the danger of chaotic water was real.
[00:17:33] And so when Jesus stands up and he's woken from his sleep and he begins to speak to the water, it has echoes for all of Mark's readers. It has echoes going Back to Genesis 1, where the voice of God booms out over the chaos of the waters and says, let there be light and let there be order.
[00:17:51] And from this chaos and disorder and danger and a place where life cannot thrive, the voice of God comes to bring order in life.
[00:17:59] And certainly for many of Mark's readers, they would be hearing this, and they would see Jesus stand up in the boat, look out over the chaos of the waters, and begin to speak order. And it would resonate. Whoa.
[00:18:13] He's operating in, like God, Creator God's authority in this moment.
[00:18:20] But unlike the Genesis 1 story, what we have so strongly in this case is that even in the chaos, Jesus is present with his disciples.
[00:18:33] And for us, I want us to understand that there are two promises that we hang onto when storms come.
[00:18:40] The second promise is the obvious one. The second promise is the one that we pray big prayers for.
[00:18:46] The second promise is for the outcome to change. It's for the winds to die down. It's for the waves to go away. It's for a great calm to happen in our relationships, in our health, in our finances, in our families.
[00:19:01] Those are the big prayers where we say, God, won't you step in? And if you have the authority, won't you use it to change the circumstance and get us to a better outcome?
[00:19:11] But you know what the first promise is?
[00:19:13] The first promise is that when the storm is raging, long before he brings peace, he's gonna bring presence.
[00:19:22] That before we get to that place where we pray God come through and change everything in the meantime, in storm, in the place where everything feels like a threat, that's when Jesus is close.
[00:19:35] He's close.
[00:19:38] And not only is he close, he's not panicked.
[00:19:42] He's not panicked.
[00:19:45] And I feel such a challenge in my own heart that when I feel like the problems of this broken world are getting too big, and I want to let that panic rise up, that we remember what we believe about God, what we believe about the authority of Jesus, and that we return to trust again.
[00:20:15] As we walk through this book, we're going to get to the end. And spoiler alert, there's a resurrection at the end of this.
[00:20:28] Frederica Matthews Green said the resurrection means that the worst thing is never the last thing.
[00:20:34] I just love that.
[00:20:37] That the worst storm is never the last thing because of what Jesus did when he stepped out of that grave.
[00:20:45] And I know that for many of us, a storm might be temporary, but for some, the storm you're facing looks like it might take you out.
[00:20:57] It looks like this might be the last storm.
[00:21:02] And what I want to tell you and say over us as a church is that we have a hope that goes beyond the outcomes of circumstances. It looks like Jesus conquering the grave itself.
[00:21:16] And that means exactly what that quote says that it might be the worst thing. It might be the thing where we don't get an outcome that we are hoping for. It might mean praying prayers that don't turn out the way we are hoping for, but that, that is not the thing that will have the final word.
[00:21:38] The resurrection has the last word.
[00:21:44] And so this gives us, I guess, the permission that when we are afraid to freak out a little bit.
[00:21:56] Jesus didn't kick any disciples out of the club, right?
[00:22:01] He understood the reason they were afraid, but he challenged them to greater faith. And the same is true for us today. We may not have a ton of faith, we may feel the anxiety, the panic welling up because of the storms we face.
[00:22:15] It's okay.
[00:22:17] But our challenge comes straight from Jesus where he says, where's your faith? And we say, well, it's very small and it's very weak and I don't know how much it can hold. And he says, that's okay, let's increase your faith.
[00:22:34] Ephesians 1. Paul is writing to the Ephesian Church and the churches all across the area who are experiencing challenges of their own, challenges within, challenges without.
[00:22:49] And this is what he prayed for them. And I want to read it out of Ephesians 1. He says, I also pray for you that you would understand the incredible greatness of God's power for us who believe him that this is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God's right hand in the heavenly realms. And now he is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else, not only in this world, but also in the world to come. Paul was reminding these churches who was in their boat when storms were battering and tossing them. Paul was reminding them that the same power that raised Christ from the dead was at work and had authority over every challenge that they faced.
[00:23:36] So take courage.
[00:23:39] Take courage when we face seemingly life threatening challenges. Take courage that God is sovereign and he's close.
[00:23:50] After the first service, I preached this and a good friend, Marion came up and she said, you know, I was, when I was young, I was so afraid when I would get on the water of tipping.
[00:24:05] And so she said, so you know what I did? I became a competitive sailor and I sailed across Lake Michigan many times.
[00:24:14] I thought you were going to say like I took swimming lessons, but no, she said, I spent 41 hours crossing Lake Michigan one night. And she said, you wouldn't believe what it feels like to be at the mercy of those kinds of waves.
[00:24:31] And I thought after hearing Marian's story, what an inspiration for us, that not only do we have confidence in God when we're in the storm, but because we've experienced him come through in the past, we don't shy away from things that look like storms on the horizon.
[00:24:52] Cause we can live very timidly where we pull back and we draw back and we try to insulate ourselves right from any threat that might be too great for us. And we live these careful risk adverse lives.
[00:25:08] I want to be like Marian. Forget the swimming lessons. Let's just go out on Lake Michigan, get on the boat where we see the storm clouds coming. But we have such a confidence that he's with us.
[00:25:23] We're not going to be afraid.
[00:25:26] And when we are afraid, we're not going to panic. And when we panic, we're going to wake Jesus up and say, I don't know if you care. Do you care?
[00:25:38] Three things that I want to take away from this story. Maybe this is helpful to you. Number one, take a rest from the panic. Take a rest from panic.
[00:25:49] If you're doom scrolling in the middle of the night, set it down.
[00:25:53] Schedule places and spaces where you rest.
[00:26:01] Set a timer even. I mean, you know, you've got something just weighing on your mind. Okay, I'm gonna take one hour. I'm not thinking about that. For one hour I'm gonna rest from that anxiety. Let the peace of God reign and rule in your heart. Number two, don't give up in the storm.
[00:26:16] Don't give up in the storm. It can be so tempting when life throws its worst at us to just stay put, give up, embrace that as the new normal. But we don't give up. My uncle always used to say, we're not homesteaders. Valley of the shadow of death.
[00:26:34] We didn't come here to stay here.
[00:26:37] We walk through the storm, we walk through the valley. We allow him to lead and guide us to get to the other side.
[00:26:48] And number three, pray with whatever faith you have.
[00:26:52] Pray with whatever faith you have. Some of you, I know you've prayed for me. Your faith is towering.
[00:27:00] You have such a confidence in the plan and the purpose of God.
[00:27:08] You pray with a faith that is inspiring and that I'm envious of. I want that kind of faith.
[00:27:16] And then others, maybe more like me. Sometimes it feels like your faith is just like barely hanging on.
[00:27:24] Jesus called this mustard seed faith. You know, like a mustard seed, like so tiny, the size of thing that you're gonna drop, you're gonna lose it. That's how small your faith might be. And Jesus welcomes you to wake him and to pray to him with whatever level of faith you have. But we come to him with that faith.
[00:27:47] And this is what I've found to be true, is that the response of the Father, the response of Jesus to our faith is not dependent on the amount of faith we have, but it is dependent on our willingness and obedience to bring what we do have to him.
[00:28:06] That it is his great love poured out for us. It is his great care for those that he loves. You that motivates the action in the heart of God. So don't be afraid to pray with the faith you have.
[00:28:24] After the storm is calmed, I would assume some of the disciples are like, great, let's get back to Galilee. Let's get back to where we came from. Let's go home. That was crazy.
[00:28:39] But Jesus doesn't let him do that.
[00:28:41] He takes them on. They go. They go across the lake.
[00:28:46] The story gets even crazier.
[00:28:49] They arrive in the area of these 10 towns, and right as they get off the boat after this crazy storm, through the middle of the night, as the sun's rising, they're greeted by this man. And he's a wild man. He doesn't say it here, but I think it's in Matthew's gospel or Luke's gospel, says that he comes at them, he's ripped chains. They've tried to chain him up because he's got an evil spirit, it says.
[00:29:18] And so he's ripped these chains off, he's naked.
[00:29:22] Like, this is not what the disciples want after a long night on the lake. Right now, we got to deal with this guy.
[00:29:32] And Jesus, in his mercy, does what nobody else in that whole area could do, and he casts out the evil spirit, and he brings healing to the man. And the man puts on clothes. Praise the Lord.
[00:29:47] And what's so interesting in the Gospels is that once he gets clothes on, then it says all the people in the towns were freaked out.
[00:29:55] They were so used to the dysfunction, they didn't know what to do with hope and healing.
[00:30:02] And I think this oftentimes is on the other side of our storm. It's this subversive, transformative, powerful work of Jesus that takes us to places that we wouldn't be comfortable anyway. But because we came through that storm, we know it's gonna be okay.
[00:30:20] And we have this confidence that the Jesus that got us through that crazy wind and wave is the Jesus who's gonna see us through and whatever comes next. And so this is how we're gonna close. I wanna encourage you whether you're in the storm, whether you're about to set out on the water, whether you've been through some storms and you're looking at what's next. I want us to invite a rising level of faith that we would have such a confidence in Jesus today that whatever we face a storm that feels, in the grand scheme of things, like a minor inconvenience, and the storms that are coming to take us out, no matter the storm, that our faith would be in Jesus.
