Sailing in the Storm

On Wednesday nights, the youth and I have been going through the Gospel of Mark and over the past 5 months, we have made it all the way to the end of chapter 4. I thought that it would only be fitting for some of our graduating seniors that we would get to spend at least one more day together in the Gospel of Mark so we will be in Mark 4:35-41. Today we are looking at a very well-known section of Scripture that I am sure many of you are already familiar with and that is Christ’s calming of the storm on the Sea of Galilee. By the pure providence of God, I can think of few words that are more needed in our day and for our graduates than what we are going to read this morning. To give you a map of where we will be going this morning, we will look at four presences: 1. The Presence of Storms and 2. the Presence of Fear. 3. The Presence of God. 4. The Presence of Perfect Peace. Let’s open up in prayer and then we will read Mark 4:35-41

Mark 4:35–41 NASB95

On that day, when evening came, He said to them, “Let us go over to the other side.” Leaving the crowd, they took Him along with them in the boat, just as He was; and other boats were with Him. And there arose a fierce gale of wind, and the waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling up. Jesus Himself 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?” And He got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Hush, be still.” And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm. And He said to them, “Why are you afraid? How is it that you have no faith?” They became very much afraid and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”

The Presence of Storms and the Presence of Fear

As we look at these verses, we see that after an incredibly long day of ministry, that Jesus calls His disciples to Him and when it is evening, they get into a boat because He has a desire to go to the other side of the Sea of Galilee to the country of the Gerasenes. He does this as a way to get a break from the crowd and it is on the other side of the sea where there are smaller cities and smaller towns that will not crowd Him quite as much. I am sure that for many of the disciples, several of whom were experienced fishermen, that they knew the Sea of Galilee like the back of their hand. An experienced fishermen that made his trade off of the Sea of Galilee could sail in the evening with no problem whatsoever. One commentator that I read said that to fishermen like Peter, James, and John, traveling on this sea was about as common as our drive to work in the morning. What is significant about the Sea of Galilee is that it is 690 feet below sea level and it is surrounded by hills so wind and storms are not uncommon. It was and is not uncommon at the Sea of Galilee for random storms to just pop up. The fishermen that we have on board with Jesus know what a storm looks like so it is incredibly significant that despite their experience as fishermen and with storms, that they respond to the storm in Mark 4 the way they do. Notice that these experienced sailors are totally overwhelmed by this storm. They aren’t just overwhelmed, they are completely and utterly terrified so that in itself tells you that this is no ordinary storm. In verse 37, we see that there arose “a fierce gale of wind, and the waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling up.” You and I when we think of a fierce gale of wind, we might think of a quick gust of wind that knocks you off your feet but the Greek word that Mark uses here is actually used to mean a whirlwind or a hurricane. These men are not just stuck in strong headwinds, they are trapped in the middle of a hurricane! These fishermen that are so used to being caught in the wind and storms of the Sea of Galilee are so scared that they think that they are going to drown and this is a perfectly logical conclusion is it not? You and I do not need to be experts of sea travel to know that if you fill a boat up with enough water that it isn’t going to float anymore. We also have to understand that in the first century, man’s view of the sea was that it was a wild, uncontrollable, almost demonic force. Their was this uncertainty and it was a place of pure chaos. This is what makes events like the crossing of the Red Sea all the more significant because the sea was seen as such an unruly agent. I am hoping that what you are getting from this is that this is no ordinary storm and this is no ordinary amount of fear. Storms in life should not surprise us but how often they do, am I right? I’m not talking about purely physical storms like the disciples faced on the sea of Galilee but I mean those events in our lives that test us, try us, and terrify us. We live in a fallen world but it is still our Father’s world and yet, how often do we fall into the same state that we find these disciples in? We go about our business in life, thinking that we have it all under control, the same thought that I am sure these experienced fishermen thought as they got aboard this boat, but then the fierce gale of life comes upon us. Life happens and trouble comes at us so quickly that it feels like we are drowning. We are so often afraid by what we see going on around us and what is happening to us. We are afraid of what will happen to our lives and to those that are around us and isn’t it true, I’m talking especially to Christians, that we find ourselves asking God the very question that the disciples ask Jesus in verse 38? Mark 4:38 we read, “Jesus Himself 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?”” Do you understand what they are saying here? They’re saying, “Jesus, we thought that you loved us! Don’t you care about what is about to happen to us? Don’t you care that we are dying?” My dear friends, how often we say that to our Lord. How often we go through times of testing and our first thought is to say, “God if you loved me, you wouldn’t put me through this!’ We lose our health, we lose a loved one, we lose security and the first thought out of our lips is the accusation, “God, don’t you care?” I do not think there has ever been a more ironic statement than what was uttered by the disciples in verse 38. Jesus, do you not care that we are perishing? Oh, He cares and more than what they now realized. Why did Jesus come in the first place? Because we were perishing. The very fact that Jesus is on that boat is a living and breathing testimony to the fact that He cares! His life, death, and resurrection proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that He cares! But don’t we often still question? Many of us go through this life and we experience nothing but smooth sailing and we thank God for that time, but then here comes the storm. We follow the Lord and trust His goodness until it seems as if He isn’t actually there because trouble shows up. J.C. Ryle said, “How many have faith and love enough to forsake all for Christ’s sake, and to follow Him whithersoever He goes, and yet are full of fears in the hour of trial! How many have grace enough to turn to Jesus in every trouble, crying, ‘Lord, save us,’ and yet not grace enough to lie still, and believe in the darkest hour that all is well.” Friends, there will be times when storms will surround you and it will feel as if God is asleep or absent in the world. But our God is there! The only one not shook by the storms of the world that we find ourselves in is the One that is sovereign over it all! You have heard me say this enough but God is not shocked at the state of the world today. All things are proceeding according to His perfect will.

The Presence of God

We know that storms exist in the world, we know that fear exists and that we often fall victim to it, so what is the answer to this? It’s the presence of God. The greatest answer to how we can confront the presence of fear is by clinging to the presence and person of God. Notice what happens in verse 39, Jesus gets up and He rebukes the wind and says to the sea, “Hush, be still.” What does Jesus do to the storm? Basically what He says is, “Sit down and shut up.” Seriously, the Greek word that Mark uses for be still comes from the same Greek word which means to muzzle. Jesus is the only person in the world that has ever been able to calm a hurricane in the same way that one calms a disobedient child. Now it is one thing to stop the wind but for you who have been out on the lake on windy days, you know that even if the wind stops, you still feel the effects of the wind right? A storm can come and go but you still feel the waves don’t you? Notice what Mark says, “The wind died down and it became perfectly calm.” In a flash, the waves that were breaking over the boat come to a dead calm. Jesus doesn’t concoct a potion, He doesn’t utter magic words, He doesn’t bring out a wand, He speaks and in an instant hurricanes and winds and waves halt before their Creator without a moment of hesitation. He that created the world has called His world to order. In a way, I think that we can see a glimpse of what will happen at the second coming. This world will rage but in the twinkling of an eye, the King will return and just like that, it’s all over. Perfectly calm. Now if you were on the boat with Christ and His disciples and you had just experienced this storm, how would you feel once this great calm came? You would think that you would feel relieved but look again at verse 41. We read, “They became very much afraid.” The disciples were scared before but they’re terrified now! Why is this? Because they have realized that this is not an ordinary man in the boat. God the Creator was in the boat with them. The only thing that causes greater fear in the hearts of man than a life changing storm is the presence of Almighty God. There is a reason why every time in Scripture when man stands in the presence of God that they fall on their face in fear. One of the greatest mistakes that we have made as the 21st century Church is that we have tried to see God as our buddy and not as our Lord. We talk to freely of the Lord. “The old man upstairs, the big guy, daddy God, Jesus is my homeboy.” These things are disgusting and lack total reverence for the All-powerful Creator. We have lost sight of what it means to be in awe and fear of the presence of God. It should not be lost on us that Jesus says in Matthew 10:28 “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” He does not say that we should respect or uphold the one that is able to destroy both soul and body in hell, but that we should fear Him. If these is the God of the universe, what hope do we have? How can we stand in His presence? Why wouldn’t we strive with all of our might to get out of His presence? Fortunately, the one and only God that stood in the boat, that controls the wind and the waves, is ultimately good. I’ve shared this before but do you remember in C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe what the Beavers say to Susan as they are talking about the great Lion, Aslan? As they were talking about Aslan, Susan didn’t realize that they were talking about a lion so she asks the question, “Is he safe? I feel quite nervous meeting a lion.” What does Mr. Beaver say? “Safe? Who said anything about safe? Of course he’s not safe. But he’s good. He’s the King.” We’ve seem the presence of storms, we’ve seen the presence of God, and now we come to the presence of peace.

The Presence of Peace

In verse 40, Jesus asks His disciples, “Why are you afraid? How is it that you have no faith?” He doesn’t cast them out for their concerns, He doesn’t cast them into hell at the moment of their doubt and unbelief. He asks, “Why are you afraid?” They had seen who was with them in the boat. They had seen Him that cast out demons, healed the sick, cured the paralyzed, they’ve seen all those things and the best was still to come. It’s as if Jesus was saying, “Men, after all that you’ve seen? Why did you question and why were you so afraid? When I cast out demons, when I raised up paralyzed men, did anything stop me from doing that? No! Then what is there to fear?” Up to this point, these men lacked nothing. They had no need that Christ did not provide for. They had absolutely no reason to question the love and power of the One that had already done so much for them. They had seen so much already! But don’t we do the same thing? Despite all that the Lord has already done for us, don’t we often go running up to Him and saying, “Why don’t you care God? Get me out of this!” We may not want to admit it but we do, we’re all guilty of this. What should we do then? It may seem like an oversimple answer but it’s a Biblical answer and I think that while it may sound simple on paper, there is more to it than we realize. We go to Him and we ask. That’s all we have to do. In the midst of storms, in the midst of doubts, instead of fleeing and acting like God can do nothing, go to Him and trust Him to be Himself! Sure, the disciples in the boat had doubts but they at least had the common sense to still go to Jesus with their problem! Far too many of us have a storm, have trial, have a doubt and we keep thinking, “I’ll just handle it myself! No need to go to the Lord about it!” We say that we will handle it on our own and when we try, we’re shocked at the results. Do you remember that great Rich Mullins song that goes, “We are frail, we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Forged in the fires of human passion, choking on the fumes of selfish rage. And with these our hells and our heavens so few inches apart, we must be awfully small and not as strong as we think we are.” There lies our problem, we are not as strong as we think we are and we think our Lord is only a slightly stringer version of ourselves! Look, later on in Mark 9 a father comes to get help for his son. His son has a demon and he goes to Jesus but the issue is that Jesus is currently with Peter, James, and John on the Mount of Transfiguration so the other disciples are left with the task of healing the boy. Jesus comes down the mountain but the disciples had no luck and the boy is still possessed. The father goes to Jesus and says to Him, “If you can do anything, take pity on us and help us!” In Mark 9:23 we read, “And Jesus said to him, “ ‘If You can?’ All things are possible to him who believes.”” What does the man do after that? What does he say? He doesn’t say, “Well thanks Jesus, that’s a dumb answer. What is belief gonna do for me right now? I brought the boy and nothing happened!” No, in Mark 9:24 we read, “Immediately the boy’s father cried out and said, “I do believe; help my unbelief.” What this man does and what he says is what we must do and fight for every day. We say, “Father, I know you are good! I know you are all-powerful, I know you love me and I believe but help my unbelief.” Brothers and sisters, why are we so afraid to ask for that which He is so willing to give? We say, “Jesus, I know who you are, I know what you’ve done, I know that you love me, but I still struggle. Help my unbelief.” We ask that with the full assurance that one day our faith will become sight. How do we know that we can have peace with God now? It’s because of what Jesus has already done! I was listening to some Tim Keller sermons on the Gospel of Mark and when he got to Mark 4:35-41, he mentioned how similar Christ’s calming of the storm is to the story of Jonah. Do you remember how in the book of Jonah, how Jonah sleeps as the storm falls on the ship and the crew? What does Jonah say to the captain? He says toss me into the sea and you will live and that is exactly what happens. It’s similar right? But it seems like the big difference is that Jonah is tossed into the storm while Jesus isn’t. Or is He? Here’s what Tim Keller says, “In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says, ‘One greater than Jonah is here,’ and He’s referring to Himself: I’m the true Jonah. He meant this: Someday I’m going to calm all storms, still all waves. I’m going to destroy destruction, break brokenness, kill death. How can He do that? He can do it only because when He was on the cross He was thrown- willingly, like Jonah- into the ultimate storm, under the ultimate waves, the waves of sin and death. Jesus was thrown into the only storm that can actually sink us- the storm of eternal justice.” The surety that we can go through life storms with the full assurance of the peace of God comes from the reality that Christ has already endured the storm that we could not take on our own. If Jesus was willing to bear the full weight of God’s wrath towards your sin and my sin, if He is willing to do that for us now, why would we question if He cares? Our perfect peace comes from the knowledge that our God is for us and not against us. Remember what Jesus tells us in Luke 12:32, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom.” Knowing that our Heavenly Father has given us as His people a Kingdom, we can weather a few storms knowing that the greatest storm has already been dealt with. The presence of God changes everything. We see this happen with the Apostle Paul. In Acts 27 as he is on his way to Rome, the ship that he is on gets caught in horrible storm. It’s so bad that many are thinking of abandoning ship but what does Paul say? He doesn’t say, “Guys trust me, I’ve been on a boat before, let me take a shot at getting us through this.” He doesn’t even say, “Guys trust the captain, he’s the professional, we’ll be fine.” No what does He appeal to? In Acts 27:21–25 we read, “When they had gone a long time without food, then Paul stood up in their midst and said, “Men, you ought to have followed my advice and not to have set sail from Crete and incurred this damage and loss. “Yet now I urge you to keep up your courage, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. “For this very night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve stood before me, saying, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before Caesar; and behold, God has granted you all those who are sailing with you.’ “Therefore, keep up your courage, men, for I believe God that it will turn out exactly as I have been told.” How does Paul have peace? Because He knows the Lord, He knows and trusts His Word, and He knows that the Lord is good. Even in the midst of this great storm, Paul has the sure word of God and he believes beyond a shadow of a doubt that all that God had said will happen. You and I can have that same assurance. In this world, filled with all of its storms, we too can say, “For I believe God that it will turn out exactly as I have been told.” One day we will realize that there was nothing to be afraid of and never had been. We know this because Christ has weathered our storm and if He can rest in the midst of a hurricane, we can rest in the midst of the storms that we find ourselves. There is a great hymn by John Newton, the great hymn writer who wrote Amazing Grace, and was certainly no stranger to stormy seas, that goes:

Begone, unbelief, My Saviour is near, And for my relief Will surely appear; By prayer let me wrestle, And he will perform; With Christ in the vessel, I smile at the storm.

Though dark be my way, Since he is my guide, ‘Tis mine to obey, ‘Tis his to provide; Though cisterns be broken And creatures all fail, The word he has spoken Will surely prevail.

Is Christ in the vessel of your heart? Because if Christ is not there, you will never be able to smile at the storm. You will always be running and wondering whether God cares and I tell you, He does! Are you in the midst of doubt? Are you in the midst of unbelief? Are you totally caught in the storms of life? Come to Him! For He is good and He will provide. If you are here this day and you don’t know where to turn, turn to Christ and live. Turn to Him with the full assurance that He will never leave you nor forsake you because He has already taken on the greatest storm for you and He will walk through these smaller storms with you. Let’s pray.