Untitled Sermon

It’s Above Me Now –

Intro:

The title of this sermon stems from a video that went viral at the end of last year of a hotel front desk attendant. In the video the young black man is seen talking to an older woman whom he spoke to on the phone earlier that day. The issue was that the young man refused service to this woman because she called him a couple names on the phone that I won’t repeat because I’m in the pulpit and it’s black history month. But after the phone call ended he contacted his supervisor and was given the ok to cancel her reservation. The woman then shows up and tries to check in anyways. When the young black king isn’t having it, the woman begins to pled more saying she didn’t mean what she said and that she was frustrated. The young king continuously replied, I’m sorry ma’am it’s above me now. No matter what further arguments the woman had, the young king kept repeating it’s above me now. No matter what rebuttable she had, it’s above me now. No matter how much she pleaded, it’s above me now. See, the key here is that the young king never lost his cool. He never raised his voice. He was never worried. In fact, he even had a little smirk on his face. Because he knew the issue that stood before him was already taken care of. It wasn’t even a problem at this point, he’d already given it to somebody over his head. It was no longer in his hands but in the hands of somebody with more authority than he. So not only was at ease because he no longer had the burden of solving the problem, the thought that the person above his head handling it brought a smug smile to his face. This person above him had more authority than he. He knew this person in charge could fight this battle in ways that he couldn’t.

Today I want to get you to understand that no matter what may be going on in your life at this particular time, it’s not hopeless. I want you to get in your mind that there is a man in your corner at the face of every opposition. No matter how big or how strong the storm may seem there is a man named Jesus who can quite the storm. Tell somebody it’s above me now. I’ve come today to tell you that you can look the devil in the face and tell him it’s above me now. When he gets to talkin to you tell him it’s above me now. For every rebuttal, it’s above me now. For every deception, it’s above me now. For everytime he tells you won’t make it, it’s above me now. For every obstacle, it’s above me now. Tell him I don’t even have to fight you, I already gave the problem to my heavenly Father and He doesn’t fight fair. Ask Moses, he’ll tell you that God fights with plagues and famine. Ask Noah, he’ll tell you that God fights with rain and floods. Ask Joshua, he’ll tell you God can make cities crumble with a marching band. Ask David, he’ll tell you have the Lord will prepare a table for you in the presence of your enemies. Because not only will God fight for you but He will do it in a way that He’ll make sure all your enemies watch you win. Just ask the young king in this story and he’ll tell you how the same people that will insult you and call you out your name will come to you literally begging for help. Won’t he do it?

Let’s go to the text. Today there are three things God wants me to highlight for you before we leave this place. God’s promise, God’s peace and God’s proof. God’s promise means that He has a plan for your life. God’s peace, something you should always be aware of because His presence brings peace.

God’s Promise vv. 35-38:

God’s promise. In verse 35 we see Jesus give them two things, a direction and prediction. In His imperative, He gave them direction and a destiny. It’s in this that the disciples should’ve been secure. It’s in this promise that the disciples should’ve been alright with whatever came next because in the boat they had the man that not only made the promise but had the power to carry out the proposal. But the problem here was that they didn’t yet know Him as a storm chaser. See until this point they knew many sides of the Messiah but they still had more to see. Earlier in the chapter we see Jesus heal Peter’s mother in law, He’s a doctor in the sick room who’s never lost a patient. Before that we see Him cast out of a man with unclean spirits, He’s an exorcist that will drive demons. Before that we see Him call His disciples. Do I have anybody who’s been called into the marvelous light? When you’ve seen God work in your life you can trust Him for what He’s done for you personally. So until this point they’ve only seen a fraction of the person of Jesus Christ, the savior of the whole world. He gave them a direction. There are times where God will give you either a direction or a destination. He’ll either say Moses leave Egypt and worship me in the land of your ancestors, the land of milk and honey. In this example He gave Moses a destination but doesn’t tell Him how he will get there. The point is obedience by faith. If He would’ve told Moses how he was going to get there, the Israelites would’ve preferred to stay in Egypt as slaves. In

we see the Israelites have just gotten out of Egypt, God just parted the Red Sea and lead them safely across before killing the Egyptians who hot on their tracks. Just a few days later they start complaining to Moses, isn’t it funny how our memory starts to act up when it comes to what God has done for us? Ain’t it funny? Let’s look back. He turned water to blood, covered Egypt in frogs, lice, flies, killed off Egypts livestock, caused their skin to be covered in boils, called hail, thunder and fire to rain down on the land of Egypt, covered their fields in locust, stopped the sun from shining for 3 days Egypt and took the firstborn of every single Egyptian household. And finally when Pharoah complied with God’s wishes and demands, God made sure that not only did the Israelites get set free but He gave them favor amongst the Egyptians so much that whatever they requested, they were given. Gold, silver, clothing, anything they needed. THEN when Pharoah changed his mind and chased them down to a dead end God part the waters of the Red Sea so that the Israelites made it across safely. The Bible says they walked on dry ground! Now here they are just a few days later here they are asking why God would go through all that trouble to let them die of thirst in the wilderness. It’s because they got the destination but not how they were going to get there. They felt unprepared but the fact that they got the destination should’ve been a sign to them that they were going to make it. No matter the circumstances surrounding their arrival, they were going to get there.

Now sometimes God gives you the direction but not the destination. This is the case we see in this story with Jesus and His disciples. Jesus basically said let’s get in the boat and go that way. He told them which way they were going and how they were getting there. This same example can be seen between Abram and Lot in

. It’s at this point that Abram and Lot have been traveling together. Lot was Abram’s nephew from his brother Haran who’d died at a younger age so Lot took him into his family. So up until a certain point, they traveled together as if Lot were his own son. It got to a point where Abram and Lot’s property, livestock and employees became so large that they butted heads and there might’ve been a war between their camps. It’s at this point that God put it on Abram’s heart to part ways with Lot and he does it in a way that he’s secure that God’s promise will come to pass. Abram tells Lot, we’ve gotten too big for this land. Let’s split up. You go this way and I’ll go that way. Not only that, I’ll let you choose which way you want to go. Because whatever God promises you will be there when you get there. You won’t have to step on anybody to get there, you won’t have to put anybody down to get there. You won’t have to con anybody into your blessing. You won’t have to steal your blessing from anybody (side note, your husband or wife won’t already be in a relationship when you start dating). Abram was confident that God will do exactly what He said he’d do that he put his own preference aside and said that God just told me to go that way. I don’t even know the way but I’m about to find out and when I do I’m packing up and getting on the move. You got to be ready to move when he tells you to.

At the end of v. 36 it mentions that there are other boats in the water with them. That’s one of the main reasons I chose Mark’s account of this event over the others covered Matthew and Luke. [read v. 36] When God promises you something it’s going to be so abundant that those around you will get leftover blessings. They’ll get blessed as an after thought of your blessings. Let’s look back at Abram and Lot. The problem was the after affect of God’s promise to Abram. God never promised Lot anything. He told Abram I’m going to bless and your family, that included Lot. There are people walking around right now thinking they got favor when they really got is friends with favor that they’re benefiting from. We’re going to call this blessed by association. So the other boats that were in the water were about to witness the goodness of Jesus just because of their proximity to the master. Because it’s not that Jesus said to the other boats let’s go, they were just there. But they were caught in the right storm. How many know that if you’re going to be caught in a storm you might as be in the same storm as the master of the seas? When this happens, you have peace in the storm because peace is in the storm.

God’s Peace vv. 38-39:

Somebody say God’s Peace. The disciples had peace incarnate right there with them in the storm. They were too busy looking at the storm brewing around them to really have that peace on the inside. They were so upset and afraid that they started get mad at Jesus, like He did something wrong. They said Master you don’t care that we are about to die? They were trippin. But not Jesus. He wasn’t letting the observation of the obstacle change His outlook on the obvious. Instead He went to sleep. So He Here’s a perfect example of the hypostatic union. The hypostatic union is the union of Jesus Christ’s natures, the concept that Jesus was 100% and 100% at the same time. This is a place in which the Bible teaches us about this hypostatic union. Here Jesus is, being all God and all man. He’s asleep in the boat but He’s in control at the same time. He’s taking a nap but He still has all power in His Hands. He said look I’m God but I still get tired, hungry and even have emotions just like you do. He said I gotta sleep just like you, I gotta eat just like you, I feel physical pain just like, I have emotions just like you. The only difference is that He is also God. At

in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth He was there. When God said let US make man in our image, He was who the Father was talking to. In

it said all things were made through Him and without Him nothing that exists was brought into existence. Yeah that was Him. So at the same time that He’s man that gets hungry, sleepy and has emotions, He holds up existence. He cares for His creation and is the incarnation of truth. So here we have Jesus sleeping but He’s at peace because He is peace and He has the power to provide provision for Him promise to come to pass. In that He had full trust in Himself. But the disciples didn’t trust Him they way they should’ve and this got them worried. We all know what it’s like to be worried about something because of lack of trust. Parent’s you ever forget to plan dinner so you tell your children to take chicken out the freezer so you can cook it when you get home? You’re at work all day like please don’t let me get home to find that chicken unthawed or these kids will need intercessory prayer. Ooh Jesus help us. Or you ever have a group project that you just know everybody won’t pitch in to do? Everybody in the group has assigned portions of the project and you’ve done your part but you the teacher put you in the group with homeboy that be sleep in the back corner? Help me Jesus. That’s worry. But if you have trust in the Lord of All the Bible says you will have a peace that surpasses all understanding. It really won’t make sense in man’s mind. People will literally see the craziness going on around you and why are you so calm and collected? You just had a death in the family but it didn’t destroy you. You lost your job but you carry yourself like you know where the money is gonna come from. You’re broke but you’re not broken. You just went through a divorce but you walk around with your head up, why are you like this? Because people correlate worrying with caring. Like f you care about something or someone and want it do well you should be worrying about it. And if you’re not walking around with your head down then you must not care enough. Be careful, that’s really just to make them feel better. They said Jesus you’re too relaxed right now and it’s making us uncomfortable. People will disturb your peace acting like they’re trying to remedy the situation. They’ll make act like they’re trying to help you out but they’re really just creating confusion and distress. They’ll say stuff like “look I’m not messy but...” or “I was kickin it with so and so and heard your name come up” or my personal favorite “you know I usually keep to myself and stay out everybody business but...” people are messy. The disciples wanted Jesus to be just as upset about the storm as they were.

God’s Proof (maybe provision or power) vv.39-41:

But Jesus had something better in store for them. Because every storm is really a chance for God to show you His power. Somebody say God’s Power. I wasn’t there but I could just imagine Jesus getting like let me go ahead and do this right quick so they’ll stop trippin. He’d been preaching and healing and performing so they would believe in Him for all that He is and all that He can do. Until this point in Jesus’ ministry the disciples had only seen a few miracles. But until you really see that God can do in your life personally you’ll never really know who He is. So you have to thank God because for every storm He’s Jehovah Shalom He’s our peace. For everytime you don’t know where the money is coming from He’s Jehavoh Jired He’s our provider. For everytime you got sickness running through your family He’s Jehovah Rophe He’s our healer. For everytime we’re lost and don’t know what we’re going to do in a situation He’s Jehovah Rohi He’s our shepherd. And everytime you just wake up in the morning you got to give Him praise because He’s Elohim and He’s God all by himself, the self existing one; who stepped out of nowhere and created time and space. While the disciples hadn’t yet seen the full extent of Jesus’ ministry and so much more to learn about Him, they’d already started to get a little too familiar with God. See because they walked so closely with Jesus, the one thing the disciples always had to be careful about was becoming too familiar with Jesus. Don’t ever let your proximity to God let you get to comfortable with God. You can from walking with God and being fully immersed in Him to forgetting that He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. It was in this comfortability that the disciples let go of that reverence for Jesus. And this is why Jesus asked the questions “why are you afraid? How is it that you have no faith?” as if to ask, have you forgotten who I am? Have you let our close relationship get you so comfortable that you have the audacity to even be more afraid of this storm than you are of me? See this story occurs in chapter 4 but to understand Jesus’ annoyance you gotta go back to chapter 1 verses 29-31 [read

]. Here we see Jesus heal Peter’s mother in law sick with a bad fever. Jesus comes into the room, lays His hand on her and she’s healed instantly. Fast forward to chapter 4, Peter’s in the boat worried if Jesus can save them. In His question Jesus is really saying for every chapter 4 moment you have in your life you need to think about the chapter 1 that I gave you. Everybody has a chapter one with God. Think back over your life and think about when you had no hope in the situation and Jesus came into the room. He said I gave you an example for you to reference because if I’ve done it before, I can do it again.

Close (application):

And this is only the beginning. Because if you notice, Mark has 16 chapters. This ain’t even the half of it. God said I’m about to blow your mind with the things I will do. Put your trust in me and watch what I will do. I know you think this little thing I did with your storm is a big deal but just wait til you get to the next chapter and the next chapter after that. And if none of that gets you to believe completely, for every person with breath in their body there’s a Chapter 16. See at the beginning of this chapter Jesus had been betrayed, tried, convicted, beaten half to death and crucified. He was dead and gone. The disciples were distraught because this is the man they put all their hope into. And now all hope was lost. But thank God the story doesn’t end there because Jesus died for our sins but He got up to show us that He has all power in Heaven and Earth. He resurrected Himself as the ultimate show of power. In this single act He made it known that there is nothing that He couldn’t do. I want to encourage somebody today that’s maybe lost hope. There may be some a storm in your life that you think is going to overtake you. It’s ok to admit you’re afraid. It’s ok to even admit that the storm is bigger than you. But I want you to know that there is God who specializes in storm chasing. He does this for fun. Jesus goes went to bed early for stuff like this just so he can wake up and calm a storm. There’s no storm too big for our God. If you don’t already, get to know Him as your personal savior. He’s ready to step in whenever you need Him. [end in prayer]